


The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell

by Schmitty63



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2016-03-22
Packaged: 2018-04-23 15:03:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4881334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schmitty63/pseuds/Schmitty63
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy Jackson wakes up with no memory of who or what he is. He learns that he is now a devil in the service of a powerful she-devil named Victoria. She uses him to do her bidding, including killing angels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or any of the characters. I also want to give credit to my favorite band Five Finger Death Punch for the title of this story. I also want to give credit to the tumblr user witty5sosurl for the idea for this AU.
> 
> Please let me know what you think, I am open to constructive criticism, just please be respectful.

Burning, that was the first thing that I remember. I woke up in a dark, damp building; I had no notion of who or where I was. I couldn’t even remember my name. My head was spinning and I couldn’t create a clear thought. The only thing that I could think about was the searing pain that was all over my body, I thought that I was on fire.

But as I sat up and examined my surroundings, I saw that I was perfectly fine, not a scratch on me. 

From behind me, I hear a cool, calm voice. “Well hello, my new pet. Glad you could finally join the land of the living, so to speak.”

I spun around quickly, making my head spin even more. I laid my eyes upon a woman sitting in a chair. She was tall and slender, her skin was fair and her hair was brown as chocolate. She was wearing a smile that looked evil, like she had a plan to hurt someone. 

“Who are you? Wh-who am I?” I said hoarsely. My mouth felt extremely dry, like I hadn’t had a drink in weeks. “Where are we?”

“So many questions, no matter, it is to be expected. All devils are confused when they first wake up from the transformation. To answer your first question, my name is Victoria, your master. Your name is Percy Jackson, my new servant.”

Devil? Servant? What is this woman talking about? I couldn’t wrap my mind around what this woman was saying. The name sounded familiar, but the rest of the stuff was so crazy I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

“Devil? As in the devil?”

Victoria chuckled, “No my pet, more like a demon, only stronger. The devil is real yes, but he is much too busy to deal with the things that you will be doing.”

“What kind of things will I be doing?”

Her evil smile returned, “All in good time.”

 

It’s been three years since I woke up in that cold warehouse. Since then I have helped Victoria recruit five more devils, however none of them are alive anymore. They were all either overpowered by other devils they were sent to destroy, or by angels.

Angels are our mortal enemies, they are sent by God to rid the world of us. I have had many run-ins with them, but I have always seemed to prevail in the fights. According to Victoria, I am abnormally strong, which is the only reason that I have outlived all her other servants. 

On a usual day my assignment is to track and find angels then dispose of them. Once Victoria discovered my strength, she had me investigate anyone she suspected of being one of them. 

I have lost count over the years how many I have killed, I think that it is somewhere around 56, but I can’t be sure. Usually I can kill them without magic, but sometimes the angel is a lot stronger than they look and I have to slow them down with a spell or hex.

On two occasions I was almost destroyed, but Victoria came to my aide at the last second and helped me destroy the angel and heal me. I say destroyed because, technically I already died when I became a devil, but Victoria brought me back to life to serve her. 

Most people would be grateful that they get to have a second chance at life like I got, but I hate it more than anything. I have hated it since the moment I woke up. I can’t remember anything about my past, not a single one. I don’t know if I have a family out there who misses me, or if I had a girlfriend. I’m not even sure that Percy is my real name. 

I have to trust Victoria though, why would she lie to me about that? She has nothing to gain from lying to me. I have to trust her

 

Today, my assignment is to follow a woman who is suspected of being an angel. If it’s discovered that she is, in fact an angel, I am to destroy her. If she isn’t an angel, then there is no problem.

The target looks to be about my age, 24. She has blonde curly hair and tan skin. She looks like a stereotypical California girl. She stands about half a head shorter than me, and she has an athletic build. She could be easy to take down, but something about her makes me feel like she has a lot more spunk than what she shows. 

I see her ducking into any alley, looking around to see if she is being followed. Lucky for me, with the right spell, and proper positioning in the shadows, I am practically invisible. I keep watching her to see what she is going to do in the alley. She ducks behind a dumpster, completely obscuring her from my vision, when all of a sudden a bright white light radiates from the spot that she would be standing at. 

Crap, now I have to fight another one. I am so tired of fighting. A few times I have wanted one of the angels to overpower me and destroy me. But I have to keep going, Victoria made a promise to me the day I woke up.

Give me five years of loyal service and I will restore your memory and give you your life back. 

I have to keep going, I have to get my life back.

I end the spell that obscures me from sight and I start to cross the street. Cursing the noon sun for causing the heat wave that has cursed New York for the past five months. As I dip into the alleyway, I take my hands out of my pants pockets and shake them, trying to calm my nerves. Even after three years of doing this, I still get an adrenaline rush and nervous when I have to go against an angel. 

I get ready to jump the girl who is behind the dumpster, but right before I do, she swings around and grabs me by my shirt collar and holds a brilliant silver knife to my throat. The first thing that I notice are her gray eyes that are harsh and calculating. I can see her figuring out all the ways that she can kill me and torture me right this second.

“What do you want, devil?” she spits the last word out at me. I can feel the anger radiating off of her as she presses the knife to my throat.

I am so stunned that I was caught off guard like this that I don’t answer her.

“Speak before I kill you here and now!” she presses the knife a little harder to my throat.

“I’m following you to see if you’re an angle and kill you if I discover that you are, happy?” I try to act calm and cool, try to intimidate her in any way that I can. “Do you like my plan so far sugar?”

“Well, to be completely honest, no, I’ve known you’ve been following me for the last four hours, that silly little invisibility spell didn’t fool me for a second. I can feel your power radiating off of you. You are no ordinary devil, you are the one they call Harbinger of Death. You have killed many of my brethren, and I was sent here to kill you.”

“Well, I am glad that your kind know me so well,” I bluff. I am praying to Lucifer that the fear that I’m feeling isn’t showing on my face. I put on the best cocky grin I have, “You should release me before I add another angel to my list. Especially one so pretty.”

A look of anger overcomes her face, “why don’t we go someplace more private and chat?” She pulls her fist back and it comes crashing down onto my face.

Lights out.


	2. Unlikely Allies

As I open up my eyes, I shake my head trying to clear my mind. I have no idea I where I am. All that I know is that I am tied to a chair in some dark, empty room. I feel like someone is watching me but I can’t tell who is watching me.

“Well well, welcome back sleeping beauty.” 

I look behind me to see that gray eyed girl who knocked me out earlier. “How long was I out?”

“Only a couple of hours. Who would have known, the great Harbinger of Death drooled when he sleeps.” She starts shaking her head disapprovingly, “Not very intimidating if you ask me.”

“Well, what can I say? I overflow with awesome that sometimes, a little bit leaks out.” 

She starts walking around to stand in front of me, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure that’s exactly what it is. Now, let’s skip the pleasantries and get down to brass tax. Why are you killing my kind? Who is sending you? And how are you so powerful? No devil has been this strong in a thousand years.”

“Look, crazy girl, I have no idea what you are talking about. My master said that I wasn’t anything special. She is a lot stronger than I am, and I’m not going to tell you anything more. Now release me, or else you will feel the full extent of my power!” I jerk my hands up to break the ropes holding me to the chair. But even when I use all my strength, the ropes hold.

“Yeah, good luck getting out of those, hotshot. Those are celestial ropes, nothing can cut them. The only way you are getting out of those binds is if I give the rope permission to release you.

I start getting very angry, my vision starts tinting red and my hands turn to fists. “Release me from these rope now! You ridiculous, psychotic-”

A sharp pain comes across my face, “DO NOT CALL ME PSYCHOTIC!”

“Alright,” I say, trying to control the rage that is building inside of me, “what should I call you then? I would like to know the name of the one who got a momentary advantage over me.”

She looks at me critically. I can tell she is weighing the pros and cons to telling me her name. “I guess there is no harm in telling you, especially since you won’t be around much longer. My name is Annabeth, and what might yours be?”

“My name is Percy, and you are going to regret underestimating me.”

She chuckles and turns around. I hear a blade unsheathe and when she turns around, she is holding an eight inch blade that is pure white, and I can feel the energy radiating from it. “Say hello to the annihilator, it is a special blade that is made to destroy anything evil.” She walks over and presses the blade to my bicep, immediately I feel an intense burning sensation. It felt like she was pressing the sun against my skin. “Don’t worry, you will not be missed, in this world, or the next.”

All of a sudden an intense rush of energy courses through my body. I try to break the bonds again, but this time, instead of being met with resistance, the ropes snap like they were made of twine. When I look back up to the angel, her face is covered in shock. “That is impossible, no one, not even angels can break those ropes. What the hell kind of devil are you?”

Standing up, I roll my shoulders and look her dead in those gray eyes and when I speak, I send chills down my own spine at the creepiness from it. “I’m your worst nightmare, now I suggest one more time, get the hell out of my face before I tear you to pieces.”

She thinks about it for a second, with a look of horror on her face, she nods. “Fine, but don’t think for a single second that I won’t be back. I will return and I will destroy you.”

Then, from where she is standing, a brilliant white light erupts from her body, and when it fades, she is gone.

 

It’s been three weeks since I had my run in with the angel Annabeth. Victoria was extremely pissed when I told her what happened. I thought she was going to destroy me right there on the spot. But lucky for me she said I hadn’t completely screwed up, I technically accomplished the mission, discovering that she is an angel. 

Ever since then, I have been constantly looking over my shoulder, keeping an eye out for her. I wouldn’t put it past her to come up behind me when I wasn’t paying attention and sticking that blade in my back. 

But I’m not too worried, I have a few surprises in store for her if she tries showing her face in my neighborhood again. A few well-placed enchantments protect all the vital spots from damage. 

I’ve also improved my fighting skills. Victoria has insisted that I increase my training. When I’m not out on the street, patrolling for any enemies, she is drilling me physically and magically to increase all of my abilities. 

Today I am out on my routine patrol, when I come across a demon, part of a clan of spell casters that are under the protection of Victoria. His name is Jason Grace, the lead devil of the Levesque clan, and the closest thing I have to a real friend. His clan is led by a very strong witch named Hazel. She is strong enough that rumors have started that soon, she will make a stand against Victoria. Some say she has a new weapon, some way of seeing the future, which is one more thing that Victoria wants me to try and find out. 

As I approach Jason, he dips his head as a sign of respect, “Lord Perseus, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“Jason, cut the crap. How many times do I have to tell you? Address me as Percy. Don’t call me lord and definitely do not call me Perseus, only Victoria can call me that.”

He dips his head again, this time with a smirk on his face, “As you wish. So what brings you to this area? Did you miss seeing me or something?”

I chuckle, “No, just making sure no angelic scum is bothering my streets. I had a run in with one a few weeks ago and she got away before I could dispose of her. Have you seen any angels? This one was blonde, gray eyes, short but still strong. Definitely shouldn’t be underestimated.”

“Do I detect a hint of adoration in your voice?” Jason teases.

“Watch it Grace, I’m still your superior and I can still take you out. Just keep your eyes open for her, and if you see her, summon me immediately. You cannot take her by yourself, got it?”

He nods in the direction behind me, “I’m summoning you, because I’m pretty sure that she is standing right behind you.”

When I turn around, sure enough, she is standing ten feel behind me with a very unpleasant look on her face. I turn back to Jason only to find that he has disappeared. “Coward,” I say under my breath as I walk toward Annabeth.

“What in the name of Lucifer are you doing here angel? This isn’t your turf, so I suggest you scram before-”

“I’m here with a momentary offer of truce, I need your help,” she says. The way she says it, made it seem like she had a bad taste in her mouth.

“My help huh? What could you possibly need my help for?”

“There is a rouge devil on the loose and he is very sneaky. If he is left unchecked then he will cause destruction to human and devil-kind. He is very strong and can only be tracked by a fellow devil of equal or greater power.”

“But why me? You hate me, I’m just some evil ugly devil who you would rather crush under your boot than help me.”

She shakes her head, “that isn’t entirely true. I’ve been inside your mind, when I knocked you out, I entered your thoughts and saw something unique to a devil. You care about people. You put on a façade and make people think that you are just some bad ass who is following his master’s orders, but in reality, you actually care about the people around you. Just now with that demon, I could tell that you think fondly of him, though you put up a wall thinking that he only is your friend because he is afraid of you.”

I stagger backwards, how could she possibly know all of this? And what if she tells someone and Victoria finds out. She has tried to drill into me since day one that I am not supposed to care about anyone except for her. Emotions only get in the way of the natural order of things. I grab my head and shake it, trying to get this angel out of my head. “NO! That’s not true! I am evil, I hate everyone except my master, she is the only one who cares for me and she is the only one I care about!”

She looks disappointed. “Be that as it may, I still need your help for this assignment. If this stray devil poses a threat to you and your master. He is out for blood and he wants to rule the whole world with no others to threaten his rule. So, will you help me? Or do you have to check in with your master?”

She is trying to bait me into going with her. I should check in with Victoria, see what she says. But that might take too long, and what if I can learn some valuable Intel on this angel for later?

Screw it, I can handle myself. “I’m in, but I take lead. I’m the best tracker in the city, all I need is the name and I’ll find him.”

“He goes by the name Kronos.”

I close my eyes and start expanding my thoughts outward. Taking in all the energy that I’m feeling around me. I can sense a strong evil force a few miles away, and as I close in on it, the power feels massive. What kind of devil is this?

I open my eyes and I give her a confused look. “I thought you said only a devil of equal or greater power to this guy could find him. There is no way that I am that strong, it feels like all of Hell is in that spot!”

She smiles lightly, “Trust me Percy, you have a lot more latent power than you know. This should be a cakewalk for the both of us together.”

I shake my head chuckling, “well, I think you’re full of shit, but I’ll see if I can help somehow. Besides, I can’t let some other devil kill you when I still owe you one for getting in a cheap shot like you did.” I turn around to head in the direction of Kronos, putting my hands in my pockets I start walking toward the shadowy alley way.

“Where are you going? That alley is a dead end.”

“I can travel through the shadows, wanna try it out?”

She shakes her head, “I’ll stick to flying, I don’t think an angel traveling through shadow would go so well.”

“Well geez, I didn’t know those wings on your back were chicken wings,” I knew that would get her. She baited me into doing this stupid mission, I might as well have a little fun with it.

Next thing I know she has her hand clapped on mine, “Fine, you win devil, let’s get this over with.”

I give her one of my evil smiles and say, “Hold on tight angel.”

“Please, call me Annabeth.”

Then we walk into the brick wall, into the shadow world.


	3. Chapter 3: A New Enemy Appears

We walked out of a tree in the middle of a forest outside of New York. When I looked over to Annabeth, her tan skin was suddenly very pale, maybe even a little green.

“You doing alright over there?” I tried to hide my amusement.

“I’m fine. It’s just that… angels and dark places… never a good mixture.”

“You look like you are going to be sick,” I said, taking a step away to avoid any puke that might’ve be coming.

“I’m fine,” she said sharply. “I just need a minute.” She started looking around, “Where did you take us? We aren’t even near New York.”

“No, we are outside of the city a little bit. I was sensing a strong, evil presence coming from this area. I figured this would be the best place to start.” 

Looking around, I could feel this huge power over me, making me want to run home with my tail between my legs. But Annabeth started walking further into the forest. I couldn’t just let her go off and face this huge force alone. Not even my worst enemy deserved that kind of punishment.

Reluctantly, I walked to join her. I kept looking around, knowing that something bad was going to happen soon. I couldn’t help but thinking that something bad was going to happen soon. It just felt like someone was watching us the whole time. 

“So why is this Kronos guy so bad?” I asked, “Most devils just carve out a little area to control and live comfortably, how is he any worse?”

“He is one of the strongest devils in history. He ruled Hell before Lucifer overthrew him. He has sworn his vengeance ever since.”

“But Lucifer was the first. He was cast from heaven, wasn’t he?”

“True, but before Lucifer, God had to have a place for those needing punishment. It was the Primordial Hell, so-to-speak.”

“I’ve never heard of that.”

“It’s a very little known story. Only angels and God Himself know about. If people started thinking that there was another devil, they might start to question-”

All of a sudden, a group of people appeared from nowhere and surrounded us. Each of them had some wicked looking blades in their hands. A guy with an eye patch walked toward us sporting a grin, “Looks like we got a couple of intruders. Lord Kronos doesn’t take kindly to uninvited guests.”

I tensed my body, getting ready to fight, Annabeth still looked pretty relaxed, like she wasn’t even wanting to fight. I leaned closer to her, “What are you doing?” I whispered, “We can take these jokers!” 

“No,” she whispered back, then walked toward the other devils. “Apologies, we simply want to talk to your master, please, take us to him.”

What was she thinking? She must not know devils, there was no way these jokers were going to let us get to their master alive.

The devil eye patch gave a wicked smile, “Sure, we’ll take you to him sweet heart.” He motions to the group of devils to circle the two of us, but made sure that he was right behind us. He poked me with his knife, “Move you two.”

We walked with our armed guard for maybe a mile. Annabeth stayed calm the whole time. While I was as tense as a bowstring. I couldn’t believe we had been captured so easily! Normally my senses are extremely sharp, but something about Annabeth dulled my senses. It must’ve be her angel magic.

All of a sudden we stopped walking and I noticed Annabeth tense. I thought she was finally ready to fight, but then I looked ahead of us. 

A large mansion loomed overhead. One that was old and run down, and looked like it had been uninhabited for the last hundred years. The place overflowed with evil power. When I looked at Annabeth, she looked to be shaking as if she was buried in snow. 

“Are you okay? You look like you are about to pass out from fear,” I asked her.

She nodded slightly. “I’m fine, but the evil that is in this place, its sapping my strength.”

Another prod in the back from the blade came. “No breaks! Move it or lose it! The master is waiting.”

We started waking again, I wanted to take that knife from eye patch and shove it where the sun don’t shine. Then he touched Annabeth’s arm, and I heard her skin sizzle and I smelled the burning flesh. I could see the tears forming in her eyes, but she was fighting to keep her scream in. I could tell she wouldn’t give this creep the pleasure of knowing that he hurt her.

When he held the knife to the side of her neck to burn her again, I grabbed his wrist before he made contact and twisted it hard, forcing him to drop the knife. “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you. I may not like angels, especially this one. But I have a score to settle with her, so no one touches her except for me. If you try it again, that blade will never see the light of day again. Got me?”

His face was painted with rage. I could tell he wanted to try and take me on right here and now, but he jerked his hand free and bent over to pick up the knife. “You are lucky, little pawn, that the master has given us orders not to harm you. So I will let that one transgression slide, but make no mistake. If you touch me again, I will remove your hand.”

“I’d like to see you try you miserable piss-ant.” I could feel the anger building up inside of me. When I was about to swing and take his head off, I felt a warm grip on my forearm. I turned, expecting one of eye-patch’s goons trying to restrain me, but I saw Annabeth. Her grip was firm, but not demanding. “Leave it be, I expected to be harassed in such a manner. We need to see the master. We should keep moving.” 

The urgency in her eyes told me that there was more to this visit than she told me. So reluctantly, I backed away from eye-patch. 

“That’s right, good little pet. Listen to your girlfriend before you hurt yourself,” eye-patch said with a sneer. “Now like I said earlier, move it, or lose it.”

After we walked another fifteen minutes, enduring insults from the whole armed guard, we arrived at the front door of the mansion. There was a large golden “K” on the front of the door. Eye-patch walked forward and opened the door, and motioned for us to enter. Inside was a long throne room with huge pillars, lining the walk. At the end of the hall was a person sitting on a very large, ornate throne.

It was a wooden frame with large black cushions that looked very soft and cushiony. Where a person would rest their hands, the wood was carved to look like a human head was stuck on the edge. It was creepy how real they looked.

The person sitting on the throne, however, looked like a regular guy in his early twenties. He was tall and lean with muscle. He had blonde hair that was cut short and neat. But the most prominent feature on him was a scar on the side of his face. He had a smile on his face, which only made him look creepier, and he was looking straight at me.

“Welcome! Percy Jackson, I have heard wonderful things about you. Under the service of Victoria, I can see she has trained and molded you into quite the powerful devil. I look forward to seeing how much more you develop over the years. I expect great things from you.” He gave me a look like he knew my future, which sent a chill down my spine, a sensation I hadn’t experienced since I became a devil.

“Pardon my associate, Ethan Nakamura. He is as loyal as he is stupid, but he does help me a lot.” He waves his hand, “Nakamura, you and your men are dismissed. Leave us be.”

Ethan and his men bowed and they walked out of the room, leaving us all alone.

He then turned his attention to Annabeth. “And you, Annabeth Chase, I have long awaited being reunited with you again.”

I turned to look at Annabeth, confused from what Kronos had said. Her face was white as chalk. It looked like someone had just pulled her world out from under her. “How- how did you get Luke? He was dead, I saw him die! You can’t possess the body of someone who is dead!”

I was confused, who was Luke? And what was his connection to these two?

Kronos gave a soft chuckle. “No my dear, Luke wasn’t dead. Brain dead, yes, but his body was still alive, that’s all I needed. He was so angry with you, with God. I came to him in a dream, shortly before that insufferable God caused that car wreck, I told him that I could help him take down God, the angels and the Devil. The world would be his to rule, make everyone equal and fair. He loved the idea, he was going to try and get you to join, but you couldn’t renounce your faith, you wouldn’t join him. One of his last thoughts was how much he hated you.”

“Enough!” I shouted. I could see that Annabeth was on the verge of losing her mind and I had to keep control of the situation. “I get why you would want to get rid of God, but why Lucifer? What will happen to all the rest of the devils?”

“Oh Percy, if you pledge your loyalty me, you will be saved. I have already spoken to your master, she plans on joining me soon anyway. So you can just save your time and do it now. Show your loyalty to me by killing this angel that you have brought to my home. I might even convince Victoria to show you who your mother is early.”

My head started to spin, my mother? “What do you mean? Victoria said my whole family was dead.”

“Well she had to tell you that, she couldn’t have you running all around town, asking people if they recognized you and if they knew your family. Your mother is the only one left in your family, and she is alive and well.”

He held his hand out and in it was a black blade. Just like the one I saw Ethan using earlier. “Take this and run this angel through with it, and I will take you to your mother tonight. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

I reached out and took the blade. I am trying to weight the options, it would be super easy to do. Annabeth still looked like she lost her mind, and I wanted to see my mom more than anything. But this wasn’t right, what Kronos wants to do, it just doesn’t seem right. I look back to Kronos, he had a wide smile on his face. I knew what I had to do.

I flipped the knife so I was holding it by the tip and I pulled my arm back, preparing to throw, I set my target in my sights. I aimed for right between the eyes… of Kronos. 

Right as my arm starts going forward, my whole body freezes. “How dare you! I give you the chance of a lifetime! Stand at my side as I bring this world into a new order and you try to kill me?!” All of a sudden a force threw me into one of the stone columns and I flew clear through it. My body then soared across the room into another column. I could feel my ribs breaking one at a time, then an arm, and I was pretty sure my spine had a lot of damage as well.

Finally Kronos threw me to the floor so hard I cracked the marble. I coughed up blood and I thought my insides had been turned to mashed potatoes. “You are going to regret the day you turned into a devil, boy.” He lifted his foot to smash my head like a grape, but all of a sudden a great white light erupted next to us.

The light was so strong that Kronos staggered backwards, trying to shield his eyes from the supernova that was occurring next to us. When it finally died down, I looked at Annabeth. The once empty eyes of shock were replaced with a fiery hatred. “Not only did you steal the body of my oldest friend, you try and kill the only other person to show me an act of kindness. I’m sorry Kronos, but that is one slight that I cannot have.”

“You think you have a choice?” Kronos said with a chuckle. “Once I kill him, I will tear you to pieces with my bare hands.”

I took the momentary distraction to crawl a little closer to Annabeth, knowing that she was trying to stall for some time. She had to have an escape plan, she as pretty smart so I was counting on her.

Right as I reached Annabeth’s feet, Kronos saw me. He realized his mistake just as I grabbed her ankle and she shot him a grin that said sucker and she started to glow. Teleporting us out of the mansion, and to safety.

We could feel the anger, rage and the pure evil energy even during the travel. When we stopped, we were in an unfamiliar building. I heard people running around shouting. Some of the voices sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place where I heard them before. I was just hoping that wherever we were, Victoria wouldn’t be able to find me. She was going to be so pissed at me, and in the state I was in, I wouldn’t last a minute before she destroyed me.

My vision was starting to narrow and get darker. The last thing that I remember was Annabeth calling for someone. “Hazel! Come quick, we need your help!” and then I saw Jason’s face close to mine, telling me to hang on, but it was muffled like he was under water. Then all that surrounded me was black.


	4. Chapter 4: Adjusting

I woke up, feeling like a truck had run over me, backed up, then ran me over again. I was laying on a bed in an unfamiliar place. The lights were off, save for a single lamp in the corner.

I could hear voices coming from the other side of the door. I strained my ears to listen.

“He isn’t ready to take Kronos on!” it was coming from Annabeth.

“He is though, he has the strength,” said a calm female voice. It sounded vaguely familiar, I just couldn’t place where I had heard it before. “He just needs the right coaxing to unleash the power hidden within him. My oracle has seen it. On the blood moon, Kronos will be destroyed by Percy’s hand.”

I heard Annabeth groan, “Did you see how close to death he was? Had he gotten here five minutes later, or if Will hadn’t already been here already waiting, there wouldn’t be a Percy Jackson anymore.”

The other woman spoke with a harsh edge to her voice, “Do not speak to me in that way, angel. Need I remind you, that you are in my home, with many demons on my side and only two angels to help you.”

I finally recognized the other voice. It was Hazel, the witch. I was in her house, but I couldn’t figure out why.

There was a pause, when Annabeth spoke her voice momentarily shook, “I did not mean to offend, it’s just that…”

Hazel’s voice was calmer the next time she spoke, “You are upset because of the vessel took. And you are concerned for your friend in there.”

“Percy isn’t my friend, he is merely an accomplice on this mission.”

Hearing Annabeth say that hurt my feelings a little bit, though I wasn’t quite sure why.

A chuckle came from Hazel, “An accomplice who saved and protected you when it would have been advantageous to let you die. I think there is more to you two than either of you know.”

Silence returned, after about 30 seconds, Hazel broke it, “I should get back to my family, they are uneasy with all the angels being here. Go, check on Percy.”

I quickly closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I heard the door open and then close. After a few minutes of silence, Annabeth said, “I know you are awake, you can’t fake sleeping Percy Jackson.”

As I opened my eyes, I saw her looking at me with a smile. Almost as if she was thinking, “what an idiot.”

“How can you tell? I thought that I was pretty convincing.”

She shook her head and walked to a chair that was sitting beside my bed. “You weren’t drooling. That was the dead giveaway.” 

As she sat in the dim light that the lamp let up, I noticed, just how beautiful she was. Her tan skin put off a bronze glow, her blonde curls rested on her shoulders, making her look like a fairy tale princess. Then I realized where my mind was going, quickly I stopped that train of thought.

I shrugged, and quickly winced from the pain that came from the motion.

Annabeth put a hand on my arm, “Careful, you broke almost every one of your ribs. My associate, Will, needs a few more healing sessions with you.”

“What do you mean, your associate?”

“He is a medic in the Angelic Army. He is the best healer that I know, that’s why I brought him.”

“Wait, there are more angels here? I thought you were doing this mission with just me?”

“My commanding officer, Athena always has a back-up plan. And then back-up plans for the back-up plan. There are two angels here on earth with me. A medic, Will, and my Lieutenant Frank.”

I started feeling a little angry, it would have been nice to have some help, rather than have my butt kicked. “Why didn’t they come with us? Haven’t you ever heard that there is no such thing as over-kill?”

She shook her head, “That’s not how Athena works. The first run with just us, that was mostly to gather intelligence on the size and layout of the enemy. We needed to know exactly what we are going up against and how to prepare against it. We have more than angels to help us. We have had to ally with some unlikely people.”

“Hazel, and her clan,” I said. “I overheard you two talking in the hallway.” I decided to ignore the part where I got beat up for no real reason. There was no point in bringing it up, at least not right now.

A serious look came over her face. I could tell that she didn’t like the idea of teaming up with demons and devils. 

“It’s only a temporary alliance. Athena thinks that some demons aren’t so bad, maybe we can learn to work together well enough to end this long, bloody war we have with each other.”

I nodded in agreement. “I know that I’m sick of all the fighting. Every time that I kill someone, my insides churn. It feels like my soul is at war with itself. I’ve never enjoyed fighting, although, I still plan on getting you back for taking that cheap shot on me.” I give her a small chuckle, along with a grin. 

“We will have to see about that,” she says with a playful smile and a chuckle. The sound of her laugh was actually quite pleasant. It must’ve been some angelic magic or something, no other girl has had this kind of effect on me.

“What, may I ask, is so damn funny?”

“A devil not enjoying killing is a nice change of pace from what I’ve experience lately. All the other devils I’ve come across greet me by holding a blade to my throat.”

I give her a charming smile, “Well, I’m glad that I could give you a positive devil experience. I aim to please,” I finished the sentence with a playful smile and a wink. Her expression was hilarious, she had a look of shock and the color on her face flushed pink. I have to say, in the dim glow of the room, it only made her look more beautiful.

She quickly looked away, then she said, “It’s getting late, I should let you get some more rest. Will is going to come in a few times during the night to heal you some more. Tomorrow we are going to start training and re-planning our assault.”

I nodded, “Good night Annabeth,” and with that she stood up and left the room. Pausing at the door to look back at me before she left the room.

“I’m glad you weren’t destroyed Percy,” then walked out the door and shut it behind her.

≈

When I woke up, I felt more rested than I had in a long time. The only weird thing about my sleep, was the dream I had. I had been embracing Annabeth. Not just in a friendly way, but we had been cuddling. What was even more off, was that I didn’t find the thought repulsing. It actually seemed… nice.

But she was my enemy, I shouldn’t be dreaming about cuddling with her. Being around her had me feeling differently. Calmer, nice, less devilish, I’m not sure how I felt about that.

As we gathered around the table in the main room, I looked at the force that had amassed to battle Kronos. There were three angels, three humans, and three devils, including myself. Not exactly encouraging when we were looking at confronting a couple hundred devils. One of whom was stronger than anything I’d ever felt and another who was my master, also extremely strong.

It felt extremely weird being in the same room with angels. My very nature made me want to kill them, my instincts made me want to rip their heads off. But these people are my allies now, I can’t just go and rip their heads off. So in my head I kept repeating “friends, friends, friends.”

My first instinct when I walked into the room was to take in my surroundings. Surveying the exits, the people, possible weapons that I could use to defend myself. The main thing that I noticed in the room was the large table covered in breakfast foods. Normally I’d jump right into the food, but I still wasn’t sure about these people yet. 

Rather than linger on the food and possibly give in and start eating food I decided to shift my focus on the people around me. New people don’t normally bother me, but so many in a short amount of time make me uneasy. Looking around, I see my comrades in arms.

There was Hazel’s group of demons of Jason, and Leo Valdez. Leo was an elf looking kid with black curly hair and a look that screamed delinquent. He and Jason were very good friends and right now they were hanging out in the corner talking and laughing with each other.

There was a new girl sitting next to Hazel, a girl with frizzy red hair and drawings all over her clothes. I wondered if this was the oracle that I heard Hazel talking about earlier. She had a similar energy that Hazel did. One that wasn’t demonic or angelic; it was just a pure magic energy aura. The two girls were deep in conversation with very serious looks on their faces.

On the opposite side of the table stood Annabeth the angels and another girl. One angel was a really big guy who looked to be of Asian descent. He had short black hair and somewhat of a baby face. He was so big that he looked like he could make an NFL Linebacker whimper for his mommy.

The other guy had shaggy blond hair and an athletic build. He looked like he could be Annabeth’s brother, the California surfer type guy. He had a messenger pack on his side with a red cross on it. This must be Will the medic. 

The girl however felt different, she didn’t radiate any power, angelic or demonic. She didn’t even give off a magic energy like Hazel or the other girl. She looked to be Native American, with black choppy hair and feathers braided in. 

 

As I walked up to the middle of the table to start loading up my plate with a little bit of food, I look to everyone, nodding in acknowledgment. But when I get to Annabeth, I couldn’t keep eye contact without thinking about my dream. I had to look away to hide my blushing, while clearing my throat. 

“So um, who are the new people? Can’t say that I know all of you guys,” I say. I genuinely want to get to know them. If I’m going to be fighting with them, I should know at least their names. But also, if I have to fight against them later, I need to know what I will be up against.

Hazel looks up to me, “Percy Jackson, meet Rachel Elizabeth Dare. She is a new addition to my clan, she is the weapon that you’ve heard rumors about. She is mortal, but she has certain abilities like myself.”

On the other end of the table, Annabeth held her had towards the other girl. “This is Piper McLean, she is mortal with no magical ability, but she is a member of the church sent here by Athena to help us with spirits and lore that we are unfamiliar with. She went to college to study different religions and mythologies. Her specialty is Cherokee spirits.”

“Cherokee huh? Why is that?”

Piper absentmindedly played with the feather in her hair. “My grandfather told me the stories every time I went to visit him on the reservation.”

“Oh, that sounds cool, nice to meet you,” I said with a small wave. My inner devil was yelling at me to run at her and kill her right then. She was from the church, she was probably trained in how to kill devils like me. But I pushed that fear deep down, I have to trust these people. 

Then Annabeth motioned to the big guy next to her, “This is Frank, he is our weapons expert. He has been trained in every type of weapon that we know about, both angelic and demonic.”

Frank could pose a serious threat, I’ll have to watch- Stop! I had to catch myself in my thoughts again. This was going to be a lot harder than I originally thought

Then the blonde guy gave a small wave. “I’m Will, I’m a medic. I’ve met you before, but I don’t think that you were awake. How are the ribs feeling?”

“Sore, but doing alright. Thanks for asking.”

His concern felt weird, not many people in my short devil life had expressed actual interest in my well-being just to be kind. Victoria would only ask how I was doing if she was wondering if I could go out on another mission. 

Hazel stood and leaned out onto the table, “We are glad to see you are doing well Percy. You were asleep for three days.”

“Three days huh? That almost beat my record, guess I’ll just have to try harder next time. Anyway, I’m ready to kick butt!” I said, trying to hide my unease with my smile. I couldn’t let anyone see how freaked out I was. “So what is our plan of attack?”

Annabeth cleared her throat, “I’m glad you asked. Our plan is pretty simple, but it should be effective. Let’s begin.”

≈

I stared at Annabeth after she explained our plan of attack.

“Alright, so let me go over this again so I make sure that I’m not missing anything,” I say rubbing my temples.

“Go for it,” Annabeth said.

“We are going to wait three months, for the blood moon, and go to the woods right outside of the mansion. Then we are supposed to take out any and all patrols that we run across. After that we are going to sneak into the mansion through the mansion and take out everyone by surprise. And once we do all that we will kill and or capture Kronos.”

“Pretty much yes,” Annabeth says.

“This is absolutely insane, you know that right?”

“Yes,” replied Annabeth.”

“And each and every one of us could die, if one of the million things that could go wrong does.”

“Correct again.”

“So remind me again why we are doing all of this? I’m not sure if any of you realize how tough this guy is. I felt it first-hand, I’m not in any big hurry to go back to another ass kicking.”

Hazel then turned to the red haired girl, “Rachel, go ahead and tell him.”

I looked around to everyone, “Tell me what?”

Rachel stood up. “I have foreseen Kronos’ doom. You are the one who is destined to defeat him. We have some time to train everyone, I have foreseen you standing over Kronos in victory with the blood moon to your back. The next blood moon will be three months from now. And the next one after that will not be before Kronos rises to power and destroys every other devil and angel in existence. He may even be powerful enough to destroy Lucifer and God completely.”

“You’ve foreseen it? How is that even possible?”

“I am an Oracle, one who can see the future and those who may impact it greatly. I have seen a devil who has great power and has suffered great hardships throughout their entire existence, both human and devil.”

Hope fluttered in my chest when she mentioned my human life. “But I don’t remember my human existence. What do you know about my human life?”

“I’m sorry Percy, but I can’t tell you about that yet. I just know that you’ve had a hard life. I know that it’s hard to accept, but I have seen you standing over Kronos in victory with the blood moon behind you. But be warned, it will not be easy. You will have to face things that go against your very nature. If you can persevere against the trials, you will emerge victorious.”

The room fell silent. Tension began creeping into the room until it became so thick that a butter knife would cut through it.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “Well then! I guess if anyone wants out, speak now, or forever hold your peace!”

As I looked around in everyone’s eyes. I saw everyone’s fear, it was unsettling. But no one was backing down. They all knew the risks, but they also knew that they had to do this.

Finally I nodded, and said, “Alright, let’s get this started.”


	5. Chapter 5: Breaking the Chains

After training for a couple of weeks, I started seeing some improvement all around. We started getting stronger, faster and more efficient.

Hazel brought in her brother, Nico in to help us. We all figured the more soldiers we had, the better. Normally he was a lone devil who wandered to country alone. He was strong, but his loner attitude made me a little uneasy. 

We still had some tension between devils and angels. I had the biggest issue with trusting everyone. It wasn’t my fault though, I’d been mistrusting every single person I’d come in contact with since I became a devil. I couldn’t even trust Victoria, she only used me as a tool to do her dirty work.

But it did get a little easier. It started with Hazel and her clan. They were more like me, more familiar. It also helped that we all felt at war with ourselves. Allied with angels, planning to destroy devils, it just felt wrong.

Annabeth was the first angel I could trust. Mostly because we had already fought together. Also, it had nothing to do with the fact that the dreams about her continued. It was only because she was a solid tactician and a good leader.

She also seemed to sympathize with my hesitation toward trusting anyone.

“You have to work on this, we are a team and a team has to trust one another completely,” she said as she paced around my room one day. 

“I know Annabeth! I’m trying!” I collapsed on my bed. Folding my arms over my face. “You have no idea how tough this is for me. Everyone I knew before I came here has only used me for something. I’ve never had a friend. You can’t expect me to change overnight.”

She sat on the bed beside me and was quiet for a minute. Then she took a deep breath and said, “You’re right. I don’t understand, but trust me on this. You don’t want to live your life alone.”

I lifted my arm a bit to get a look at her. Her head was hung, and I saw a single tear rundown her cheek.

I sat up straight. We were so close that our shoulders were touching and I could smell her lemon scent. It was slightly intoxicating. 

“I’m sorry for making this difficult. I’ll keep working on it,” I said. I felt bad for being a pain in the ass. I figured she would say something snarky, but instead, she put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, and thank you for trying.”

Her hand lingered there for a while. Longer than a friendly gesture. Her cheeks flushed pink slightly and she removed her hand. Clearing her throat while she stood, she said, “Well, I’d better get back to planning.”

She walked through the door and left quickly, closing it behind her.

Normally I would’ve been relieved at the solitude. But I felt myself missing the company, as well as the comforting hand on my shoulder.

I flopped back onto the bed and fell asleep.

≈

Over the next few days, I had gotten a little better at getting along with the others. I tried looking for good qualities in the new people.

I kind of trusted the devils because I had known them for a while, except for Nico. But it was harder to trust the angels. I trusted Will slightly because, with all the healing he did on me, he could have killed me at any time.

Frank came next, I worked and trained with him a lot so he became familiar. He was friendly, to the point that I found it hard to believe he was a weapons expert and how to kill with them.

I sparred a lot over those couple of weeks, against everyone except for Rachel and Will. They wouldn’t be doing any fighting, they were purely support. Each person brought a new difficulty to the table. We used mostly swords, but we tried other weapons as well.

Leo was scrappy and it was hard to predict his next move. Jason was smart and would try to make me drop my guard. Hazel would use her magic to change what I saw, then she would come up behind me and put her blade to my throat.

Nico was sneaky, he seemed to melt into the shadows. He would come out of nowhere to attack. Frank fought like an animal, pure power in every attack he had. I couldn’t see how he controlled himself.

Piper was very tough, almost as strong as Frank, and as cunning as Jason. One of her favorite weapon choices was dual wielding a sword and a dagger. She moved with blinding speed and could bend at impossible angles to avoid an attack.

I teased her, “Not too bad for a nun, do they teach you those moves in between prayer sessions?”

“I’m not a nun, I just work for the church. I was trained by a martial arts masters as a child. I went to a catholic private school and a Priest, one who is trained in the art of killing creatures of the underworld, saw me when I got in a fight and saw my potential. It was all downhill from there.”

Annabeth was a completely different story. We stared each other down first. We didn’t even move for two solid minutes. I could tell she was studying me, for every opening or weakness.

I was studying her as well. Looking for anything I could exploit, but I couldn’t find any openings. Her toned body was solid as iron, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to just use brute force to take her down. Her legs were strong and toned, and long, and firm. 

She must have been able to tell I was distracted by her legs because before I knew it, she lunged at me. She was almost as fast as Piper. If I hadn’t been so lucky, she would have beaten me immediately. I blocked her attack at the last second. Back peddling to gain some room between us, I almost fell backwards.

Finally I stopped moving back and grabbed her wrist as she swung downward, stopping her dagger an inch from my face. A brief moment of shock came across Annabeth’s face, then she jerked her arm backwards and her arm came free.

She attacked again, but I held my own this time. Every swipe of her blade, I dodged with ease, but my luck wasn’t any better than hers. I couldn’t land a single blow, no matter what tactic I tried.

When we locked blades, her face was an inch from mine. I couldn’t help but notice her beauty. Her stormy gray eyes were the most intense that I’ve ever seen. She then gave me a flirty smile and a wink.

The smile took me back, I wasn’t expecting that look at all. She used my momentary confusion to head-but me, knocking me backwards.

Even with my vision spinning, I could see Annabeth smirking. That’s when I realized it, she threw me off like that on purpose.

Determined to get her back, I charged at her. I started pushing her backwards. She tried slicing at my abdomen a few times, but never hit her mark.

She jumped further away from me to catch her breath. Then she suddenly flushed red and couldn’t look directly at me.

“Um, yeah… your shirt, it has a uh-,” she stammered.

I looked down at my shirt, it had two large rips in it, and you could see my chest, and the top of my abs. Then I realized, I had a way for revenge. I reached down and grabbed the back of my shirt and pulled it over my head. I immediately start laughing at the look of pure shock on Annabeth’s blood red face.

I threw my shirt right at her face and charged behind it. As soon as she got the tattered cloth out of her face she was met with my blade an inch from her face. With no way to defend herself, she put her hands up in surrender.

“The thing about distractions, Angel, you gotta be prepared to be distracted yourself.”

I put my sword away and walked over to get my shirt, smiling at her expression the whole time.

“You win, this time, Jackson. But next time, I won’t hold back on the distractions.”

“I have no doubt about that.”

I turned around to leave the arena, and I was met by Jason, Piper and Frank. They were all chuckling, and I even saw Jason collecting money from Frank.

“What is so funny?” I asked.

Jason shrugged, “Nothing, you two just have really good…” he looked to Piper questioningly. “Chemistry.”

Piper snorted in laughter. Jason tried elbowing her to shut her up, but it only made her laugh harder.

I shook my head, “Whatever, It was just sparring.”

“I’ve seen Annabeth spar a million times,” Frank said. “That wasn’t JUST sparring. No one has ever flustered Annabeth before.”

I took a little pride in that. But before I could think too much on it, Leo ran into the room, completely out of breath.

“A message just came in for Percy, it’s from Victoria!”

≈

The Video showed Victoria in a warehouse, she was walking around a woman seated in chair, with her hands bound behind her and a bag over her head.

“Hello my pet, Victoria said through the video. “You’ve been a very bad boy lately. So bad, that Lord Kronos has ordered me to kill your mother.”

My heard dropped. Victoria had my mom, and she was going to kill her. All because of me siding with the angels.

“You have one chance to save her,” video Victoria continued. “Come to the place where you were reborn at midnight, alone, or she dies. See you soon my pet.”

The video cut out, but I kept watching the screen hoping for it to come back on and tell me everything was a lie. But it didn’t, it stayed black.

“Percy…” Annabeth started.

“I have to go,” I said.

“You can’t it’s obviously a trap. Victoria is going to kill you or try to manipulate you to join them. I’m sorry, I truly am, but you can’t go.”

“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! I DON’T KNOW WHO I AM! I have no memory of before I was reborn. I can’t abandon the one person who can tell me who I am.”

I could feel tears rolling down my face. I reached up to wipe them away. My whole body was shaking, and my throat hurt from yelling. I looked around and everyone looked terrified. I’m going, and if anyone follows, they will regret they’d ever heard the name Percy Jackson.”

≈

It was 11:55 pm as I stood outside the warehouse. I looked around one more time, making sure no one followed me. After I knew the coast was clear, I took a deep breath and headed inside.

Inside the first thing I saw was the woman tied to the chair. I ran up to her, but before I got close enough, I heard the door slam behind me.

I turned around and I saw Victoria standing in front of the door with her evil smirk. “Good boy, you finally found your way home. If you keep doing what you are supposed to do, I just might have to give you a treat.”

Her voice was condescending and it made my blood boil. “Let my mother go, none of this is her fault.”

“And why, would I do that? Every pet needs to be punished when it does something bad.”

“Please Victoria, punish me if you have to, but don’t bring her into this.”

“You don’t even remember this woman, why do you think that you owe her anything. When I found you on the street, all you talked about was how she hated you and how she beat you every day. Do you really want to save a woman who is like that?”

I looked over at the woman in the chair. I couldn’t believe that this person had beat me or hurt me in any way. “It doesn’t matter Victoria, you’re mad at me, not her.”

She walked up to me and got close to my face. “Then so be it.” A hard hand came across my face. I fell to the floor, trying to keep upright. As I tried to stand, a foot came across my face next. The force made me fall flat on my back.

Dazed I sat up, trying to figure out what was going on. Suddenly, Victoria was sitting on top of my chest, and she had a wicked blade held to my cheek. It was digging in deeply, and I could feel that it was cutting the skin. She pulled the blade slowly down my cheek, slowly cutting the skin open.

I wouldn’t cry out in pain, I wouldn’t let her get the satisfaction. 

“Oh, poor baby, does that hurt? Just give me a little yell, just a little satisfaction. Where should I cut next? I’d hate to keep cutting up this pretty little face. How about your chest? Or your arms, maybe,” the knife crept down the other side of my face, down to my jaw. “This strong jawline of yours. I always admired it, it is perfect, let’s add a little character to it.” She cut into my jaw, and I saw blood spray up a little ways.

Still, I refused to cry out in pain. I had to put all my effort into not yelling until my lungs gave out, but I knew that I had to stay strong.

“Still nothing? Hmm, let’s see what we should cut up next,” the knife slid to my throat. “Let’s cut here. We will have to be careful though, if I cut too deep then you will die too early, before you’ve suffered enough.” The knife started digging into my throat.

Suddenly the windows exploded, sending glass shards all over me and Victoria. I heard shouting from all directions. I tried to see what was going on, but with all the blood that was in my face, it had started to get into my eyes. 

Victoria’s weight was suddenly knocked off of me. Someone large picked me up from my armpits and put my arm around his shoulders to keep me up. Someone was rubbing my face with a cloth. When the blood was cleared away, I saw Piper’s face. 

“Percy, thank God we got to you in time.”

I looked around, Frank was propping me up and Jason, Annabeth and Nico surrounded Victoria with blades all pointed to her throat. 

“Well, it looks like my little puppet brought his friends along with him. It makes it easier to kill all of you later. You are seriously out matched.” She still has her evil grin on her face.

“Not as outmatched as you might think, my old rival,” came Hazel’s voice. From behind me, Hazel walked into the room. She had a confident look on her face, and when I turned back to Victoria, her confident one was gone. 

“Hazel Levesque, so you are the one who has been harboring my fugitive. I’m so glad you delivered him to me yourself. Now I will get to take both of you out together. You and this angel scum.”

Annabeth got a little closer to Victoria, pressing the knife to her throat. “You talk pretty arrogant for someone who has three blades to their throat. I’d show a little respect, especially after you hurt our….. Friend like that.”

Victoria’s face changed to one of intrigue. “Someone has some special feelings for our young Percy Jackson now don’t we?”

Annabeth’s face looked a little red, but she looked more enraged. “Hazel, may I do the honors?”

Hazel studied the situation for a second, then she nodded. “Yes Annabeth, you may. Jason, Nico,” she motioned her head back towards her.

Jason and Nico nod and back away, then I realized what was happening. Annabeth meant to challenge Victoria on her own. All I felt was fear. I couldn’t let her go through with it, she would be destroyed. 

“Annabeth, no,” my voice was weak, my head was spinning. 

She looked over to me and gave me a confident smile, “Don’t worry about me Jackson, I got this.”

Victoria smiled at me, looking directly into my eyes. It felt like she was looking into my soul, “Yes, Percy, don’t worry about her. Soon it will be just us again, so just hang in there for a minute.” She gave me a wink, and I felt my stomach churn. 

Annabeth and Victoria squared up, each of them drawing their blades. Annabeth’s knife and Victoria’s sword. 

My immediate thought was that Annabeth was doomed, but when they started to fight and Annabeth quickly showed to have the upper hand. I could see the confidence in Victoria waver as she backed away from the fighting machine that was Annabeth. 

Annabeth got in a few lucky cuts, which slowed Victoria down even more. What everyone, except for Victoria, was that Annabeth was leading her back toward a shallow pit, but one that would throw her off her defense enough that Annabeth could easily beat her. 

Right before she got to the edge, however, she yelled and set off a large blast of power that knocked Annabeth backwards onto the floor. Victoria ran forward and jumped onto Annabeth, pinning her and holding her knife to the floor.

“My my my, how the tables have turned little angel.” She got inches from Annabeth’s face, savoring the victory. When Annabeth head-butted Victoria, knocking her back, enough that Annabeth used the momentum from the hit back to get on top of Victoria and stabbed her knife through Victoria’s wrist pinning it into the floor.

Victoria’s scream was so loud, they probably heard it on the other side of the United States. Annabeth had a wild look in her eye as she turned her head to look at me. “This isn’t my kill, it’s your Percy.”

I felt shocked, “What do you mean?”

“If I kill her, it won’t be true justice. You are the one who needs to kill her Percy, otherwise you will never have closure.”

I couldn’t do it, of course Victoria was evil, and of course I hated her with all of my being. But she provided for me for three years. She healed me from the brink of death numerous times. 

I shook my head, causing more blood to fall into my eyes. I wiped my eyes clean and looked back. “I can’t, I’m sorry but I can’t do it.”

Victoria started laughing, “Yes, good pet. You see? Even if he has been with you for a few weeks, he is still mine, I still control him. Now, Percy, come take this knife out of my arm and kill these fools.”

I didn’t move, I couldn’t, it just wasn’t fair. 

“PERCY! NOW!”

My body went rigid from fear. I moved my arm from around Frank’s shoulder. He looked to me with concern. “It’s alright Frank, I got this.”

I started limping toward Annabeth and Victoria. I bent down and picked up the knife that was Victoria’s. As I walked over, I thought about the people in this room. 

About how Victoria had provided for me for so long, but also how poorly she treated me. 

But then I started thinking about my comrades here. Hazel, who opened her home to me when technically I was the enemy. She sheltered me, gave me a place where I could have friends and fight for a good cause.

I thought about Jason, the one friend that I’ve had and he has become a closer friend throughout these past couple weeks.

Leo, Piper, Frank, Nico, Will and Rachel all of these people who has helped me and become friends with me over the past couple of weeks. They all came here to save me from death, and they have. 

And Annabeth, I still don’t know exactly what she is to me, but I do know that I don’t want to lose her. She fought the woman who has made my life miserable for three years now. She beat her, and she is now giving me a chance for redemption. 

As I neared Annabeth and Victoria, I looked into Annabeth’s eyes. I could see the rage in them. Rage toward Victoria for causing me so much pain. I could see that she actually cared for me, unlike the devils who are working for Kronos.

Then I looked at Victoria. Her eyes full of hate and anger. I could tell that she wanted to harm me and my friends. I couldn’t have that, I don’t care how wrong it felt, I couldn’t have her hurting them.

I held the knife firmly in my hand, and as I took aim at Victoria’s chest. I could see the fear creep into her face.

I brought the knife back over my head and brought it down with all the power, directly into the area where her heart was supposed to be. As soon as the blade pierced her heart, she started to glow.

All of us turned our heads as she exploded into ash. Destroyed, forever. 

Jason walked over to my mom to make sure that she was safe. “Alright Miss Jackson, let’s make sure that you are okay.”

He took the bag off and we didn’t see a woman old enough to be my mother. What we saw was a girl who looked to be about our age. She had tan skin and long black hair that was pulled into a single braid. She had a hard look in her eyes and she looked like she was about to kill whoever took the bag off her head.

Jason looks at all of us quizzically. He reaches over and removes the gag and walks around to cut the ropes binding her. “What is your name?” he asked.

“I’m Reyna, this crazy woman kidnapped me a few days ago and brought me here. She brought me within an inch of my life. She said that I had died and she brought me back as a devil, but how can that be? Aren’t devils just myth? I just doesn’t seem probable,” she started to grab her head in frustration. “None of this makes sense, I can’t remember a lot of things.”

Hazel walked forward, “That is to be expected. You did die when you became a devil, you may regain all of your memory back in time, but there is no guarantee. Some devils never remember any of their life, it is a gamble. If you come with us, we can explain things, help you understand. Also, we can give you revenge. Victoria is dead, but there are others who were the cause of your change.”

Reyna thought for a little bit, looking at each of us. “Fine, but just so we are clear, as soon as I get some answers and some payback for whoever did this to me, I’m gone.”

Hazel nodded, “That is fair; you will be free to do as you wish.”

Annabeth turned away from Reyna and looked my way. She walked up to me, and put her hand on my shoulder. “You did really well Percy. Now let’s get you back to Hazel’s so Will can get you healed up.”

We all gathered around the angels and they summoned their magic to transport us back to Hazel’s home.


	6. Author's Note

Hey guys, I was looking through my story to check on information that I put for my chapter, and I realized that I posted the wrong draft of chapter 4. It messed with some of the continuity of the story so I posted the correct draft. There isn't a huge difference, but it will make things flow better. Thanks guys!


	7. Chapter 6: Breaking Down Walls

When we got back to Hazel’s place, my exhaustion came back with a vengeance. Almost immediately I started to collapse, but was quickly caught by two people.

I looked up and saw Will and Annabeth were holding me up. Will was pressing a cloth to my chin to stop the bleeding. I was fading in and out, the pain and exhaustion making things fuzzy. “Jesus Annabeth, what happened? I thought you said you had it handled!” Will said frantically.

“I thought she would wait before trying to kill Percy. Is he going to be alright?”

“He should be, but let’s get him to the infirmary.”

≈

After spending all night getting stitched, bandaged and cleaned, I walked toward my room. I felt drained, emotionally and physically. Once I got to my room, I sat down on my bed. I gingerly pull my shirt over my head, trying not to disturb my bandages. I winced slightly when I raised my arms over my head. Will said I had a couple bruised ribs, he said I was lucky they weren’t broken.

Once my shirt was off, I knew that I would never be able to salvage it. There were too many rips and too much blood in it. So I just threw it into the trash can.

I laid back onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling. I started to close my eyes when I heard my door open.

“Percy?” the person at the door said softly. “Are you awake?”

I looked up and saw the top of a blonde curly head poking through the opening of the door. It didn’t take me too long to figure out who the head belonged to.

“Yeah,” I said as I sat up, winching again at the pain from my ribs. “Come on in.”

Annabeth came into the room and instantly turned red. “You might want to um, maybe but on a shirt,” she says with a small laugh. I could see her face start to flush red.

I groan slightly at the thought of raising my arms again, and being careful around my stitches. “Do I have to? It’s a major pain to get it over my head.”

She thinks about my request for a bit. Then with a sigh, she says, “I guess, but just this once Jackson. Don’t think that you can be walking around this place without a shirt. we have to maintain a sense of decency here.”

I chuckle a little, “Alright fine, now, did you need something?”

She comes into the room the rest of the way and pulls the chair up in front of me. “You really scared us Percy,” she said softly. “You knew you were walking into a trap that could kill you. All for a complete stranger. I know that you thought it was your mother, but you can’t risk your life, even for family. Family only lets you down, they can’t be trusted.”

She was looking down at her feet, she looked sad. I could even see some tears glistening in her eyes.

“I don’t believe that, Real family will never let you down. I think that real family is the people you choose to surround yourself with, your friends. It doesn’t have to be people you share blood with, I used to think that Victoria was my family, but after seeing you guys help me last night, you guys feel more like family than she ever did. I would have gone to save you guys, just the same as I did for my mom.”

She looked up at me, her face full of confusion. The expression brought out a little laughter from me. “What’s that look for? Is that shocking to you?”

“What changed? I thought you hated us and couldn’t trust us, and it isn’t like any of us are super close.”

“Well, to be honest, before last night, I wouldn’t have said this. And I wouldn’t have volunteered to go on the mission. I would have gone, but just to help. We need all the help that we can get if we are going to fight Kronos, and if the situation was going sour I would have ran away and stuck to myself. But seeing you all there, ready to die for me, even when I was an ass hole to you guys. It just made me feel cared about in a way that I’ve never experienced before with Victoria.”

Annabeth looked at me, her mouth still wide open with disbelief. 

“Oh,” I continued, “I almost forgot to thank you for fighting Victoria for me. I couldn’t have done that on my own. I almost couldn’t even kill her how I did.”

She shrugged, “It needed to be done, and she shouldn’t have been controlling you like that.”

I waited for a while, a question nagging at me. Finally, I got the nerve to ask, “What happens after this? Do we just go back to how it was before? Devils against angels, because I don’t think I can go back to that. It’s exhausting always being on the alert, always being angry. It’s just not who I am.”

She looked over to the wall, deep in thought. Then she said, “I’m not sure Percy, but I do know this, that if fighting occurs, I will be fighting right next to you.”

“Wait, what? Why?” I asked.

She looked over to me, with a smile, “Because that’s what friends do. Or do you not consider me a friend?” she said playfully.

Friend, that word sounded so weird to me. I had never felt like I had a real friend before. It sounded… nice. 

“Well considering that I’ve never really had a friend, therefore not really knowing how it feels to be a friend, I will say yes, we are friends.” We stared at each other for a minute, longer than necessary really. But sitting there with her, I felt happy.

“Well, we should get some rest,” she said. “See you in the morning,” she stood up and left.

I laid back down on my bed and stared up at the ceiling, thinking about my… friends. I fell asleep with a smile.

≈

The next morning, after having Will examine my wounds and giving me some pain meds for my ribs, I went to the dining area and got some food. Rather than sit by myself like I usually did, I decided to make a change. I was going to sit next to someone and actually try to make nice.

Jason was sitting with Piper and they looked deep in conversation. Piper was talking a mile a minute and making a lot of gestures with her hands. Jason was listening intently with a small smile on his face. I didn’t want to disturb them and be a third wheel on their conversation.

Leo was talking with Annabeth, showing her some gadget he had been working on. It looked a lot like a grenade, and I didn’t really want to get blown up on an empty stomach.

Then I saw Frank sitting by himself, it seemed like the perfect opportunity. I walk over to Frank and sit my plate down on the table across form him. “Mind if I sit here?” I asked him.

He looked up at me and looked slightly surprised. “Percy! Hey yeah, go ahead. Um, how ya feeling after everything?”

I start to sit down, and take a bite out of my toast, “I’m good, I’ve been better, but I’ve been a lot worse. As I’m sure you’ve already seen.”

That seemed to break the tension a bit, Frank chuckled and continued eating his apple.

I asked him how he got his gig as heaven’s weapon expert. He told me he grew up around weapons of all sorts. His mom was in the Canadian army, I hadn’t known he was Canadian. He said she died in battle after saving a bunch of people, it got her a medal, which they gave him at her funeral.

“My dad was the real guy though,” Frank said as he stared at the table. He looked like he was thinking back on the memories of his past. Apparently he was one of the top generals in the country, very powerful and very scary. When his temper flared up, even battle hardened soldiers started whimpering.

“In basic training, they called him Mars, you know, after the Roman god of war,” he sighed and shook his head. “I guess I was expected to join the service. So I did, made it all the way to captain, without my dad’s help.” He seemed proud of that, his chest puffed up a little bit.

“My life was going well, until a guy brought a gun to the mall I was at on the day I died. He killed five people before I rushed him. I got shot three times in the abdomen, but my momentum sent us over the railing, down to the first floor.”

He paused for a moment. In that time I saw a few different emotions cross Frank’s face. Anger, sadness and pride were the major ones. I realized how brave Frank must’ve been to sacrifice his life for complete strangers.

“When I came to, I wasn’t a physical form. It was my soul, and I was at these gates. Saint Peter was standing there and he said that the council of angels had deemed me worthy to be one of the angels who fight to rid the world of evil. He asked if I accepted the position, at first I wanted to say no, but I thought what my mom would do. That’s when I knew that joining was the right thing to do.”

Frank continued to amaze me, he could have lived eternally in bliss. But instead he chose duty over luxury, I’m not sure that I could make the same choice.

I looked back at Frank, “You know Frank, I’m glad that I met you. You are a good guy,” I said. And I honestly meant it.

He smiled, “Thanks Percy, now what do you say? Let’s get started training.”

≈

For the third time that morning, Frank threw me to the ground and held a blade to my throat. I was panting and my whole body hurt from the relentless pounding I received from Frank.

“Three to none, what’s the matter Percy? Usually you’re better than this.”

I sit up and hold my head in my hands, “I don’t know! My injuries aren’t that bad, but I just… I don’t know.”

“Let’s try switching opponents, that might help,” Frank said as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Jason, you up for the challenge?”

“Sure,” Jason said, stepping onto the mat with an evil smile on his face. “I’ve always wanted to beat up the great Percy Jackson.”

We faced each other, holding our swords pointed at each other. I lunged first, swiping and stabbing, trying to get inside his guard. But none of my attacks found their mark. Jason dodged or blocked every one of my attempts like it was nothing. He looked completely calm and I was losing my strength.

Slowly, Jason started controlling the fight. He started pushing me back a little bit at a time. I knew I was in trouble when he started getting faster with his swings. When I reached the edge of the mat, he used a disarming technique, twisting my sword from my hand. When it hit the floor I felt completely defeated.

“Dammit! What’s with me today? I can’t think straight and it is messing with my fighting.” I felt so frustrated, I sat down and put my face in my hands.

“You can’t think straight, because you are an idiot Percy.”

I looked up and saw Jason glaring down at me. He looked angry.

I felt the anger flare in my gut, “What did you say to me Grace?” I stood up and got right in his face. My nose was an inch from his and it was taking all of my self-control to not rip him apart right then and there.

“You heard me Jackson, or are you too stupid to understand what I’m saying? I thought you were supposed to be our savior, the one to bring down the big bad Kronos, but if you are this stupid, we are doomed.”

I could feel my anger boiling inside of me, I wasn’t sure how long I could control myself. “Cut it out now, before I destroy you with my bare hands.”

“Bring it on dumb ass!”

That was the final straw. I swung my right fist Jason barely had time to dodge the attack. He raised his sword and pointed it at my chest. “Grab your sword idiot, let’s see if you deserve the title Harbinger of Death.”

I bent down and picked up my blade, even though I would have rather used my hands. “You are going to regret those words Jason Grace.”

Immediately I started swinging my blade at his head, using all the power I had behind each thrust. The swings came faster the more we fought, Jason was barely keeping up with the strikes. His anger from before was gone, his expression had changed to determination. When he parried one strike, he started to spin around to get a powerful swinging blow, getting speed behind the blade. I knew exactly what he was doing, time seemed to slow down. As he spun, I hooked my foot around his planted leg and pulled it out from under him. 

As he fell backwards, I followed him and landed with my knee in his chest and my blade to his throat.

Jason lay on the floor coughing and out of breath. Slowly his coughing turned into laughing.

“What the hell is so funny?” I growled. I knew that if he insulted me one more time, this blade was going to be buried deep into his throat.

“I figured out your problem Percy.”

“Wait, what?” my vision started to clear. I hadn’t realized how red everything was before, I started to think clearly. I then realized that he had meant to piss me off. “You know what my problem is?”

“Yeah, now get me up and I’ll tell you.”

I stood up, and reached my hand down to grab his hand to help Jason up. “So, what is the big secret as to what is wrong with me?”

He started to massage his chest, where my knee had been. “Well, for starters, in your case, you shouldn’t think when you fight. You’re fighting style requires that you fight with emotion, raw emotion and instinct. But earlier you were thinking about your next move, rather than trusting your body to know for you. So, to cut out your brain from the equation, we have to get you pissed, and learn to channel your emotions and make you stronger.”

Frank came up from behind me nodding. “He’s right Percy, most people are supposed to keep their emotions out of the equation, but in your case, that’s where your power comes from; when you channel those powerful emotions your power grows tenfold. I could feel your aura coming off of you like an inferno that last fight. The others could probably feel it as well.”

I looked to the two guys, “You guys really think this will help me?”

Jason got a smile on his face, “I think that if you learn to channel those emotions, it just might tip the balance in our favor.”


	8. Chapter 7: Break Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to change the POV on this one, just wanted to explore Annabeth's feelings toward the relationship a little bit. Also this is part one of a chapter that I started but it got too long so I split it into two chapters. Hopefully will have part two up in a few days after some final touches are made.

Annabeth

“We cannot afford a break right now, we are still out matched.” Frank and I had been arguing for about an hour now. I told him that we needed to keep training everyone, that we weren’t ready.

“Annabeth, everyone is so wiped out that they are losing sight of what they are fighting for. We need to remind them that the world out there is worth saving. Right now all they know is training. I’m not saying we take a week-long vacation, just one day.”

I paced around the office where we had been planning the attack for the last two months. Deep down I knew that Frank was right, everyone was starting to get burnt out on the training and they needed a break. But they still weren’t ready. 

Frank was looking at me intently. “We need to give them a break, then they can come back fresh and will train even harder and make more progress. Everyone is starting to plateau and that isn’t going to help us.”

One of the things that I’ve hated the most in my life, is admitting that I’m wrong. I cover my face with my hands and let out a large sigh. “Fine, fine! We will have one day of rest and relaxation tomorrow. It’s a Sunday, so why not? But on Monday we are back to training! NO excuses.”

He hung his head down, trying to hide his smile. “Yes ma’am. Now if you’ll excuse me, I will go let everyone know the good news.” He started walking towards the door, and just as he was about to leave, he stepped back to look at me. “Oh and pack your swimsuit, everyone has already planned on going to the beach in the instance you said yes.”

I suddenly got the feeling that Frank wasn’t asking for this break on his own initiative.

≈

It was about noon when we arrived at the beach. Hazel’s group stepped out of the alley-way. They used shadow traveling to get to the beach, they didn’t like to use our angel magic. Which was fine, we didn’t like to use their shadow travel method.

We gathered at the sidewalk that lead along the edge of the beach. All of us carried our packs full of our beach supplies, towels and umbrellas. It felt nice to have the sun shine on my skin, it had been so long since we had been out in the day time. 

“I’ll race you guys to the water!” Percy said. He was grinning wildly and started taking off towards the water.

As we ran out onto the beach sand, a weight immediately was lifted from my shoulders. It felt so good to feel the sand in between my toes in my sandals. The sand immediately started warming up my toes.

The first person in the water was Percy. He ran faster than I’d ever seen him run before, shedding clothes along the way until he was down to just his swim trunks. When he jumped in, he went completely under the water and was under for a long time. I was starting to get worried when he suddenly emerged, sporting a huge smile covering his face.

“Come on in guys!” Percy yelled at us. “The water is great!”

I tried not to stare at his chest and his abs. All the training we had been doing was doing wonders for him. His pecs and arms looked like they had been sculpted by the Greek gods, using Adonis as their model.

I stopped myself, Woah, where had those thought come from? Sure, Percy was attractive, but he was still a devil, my enemy. We couldn’t be anything more than temporary allies. I’d been needing to remind myself that more frequently lately.

The problem was that more time I spent around everyone, the more I looked at them as my friends. I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I decided that today was not the day to try and decide what was right or wrong. Today was a day to rest and enjoy the company I was in. 

I got about half way to the beach and decided that was the perfect spot to set my towel to soak in some sun. I didn’t want to go swimming quite yet, maybe later. Percy was splashing around in the water with Jason, Piper and Frank. 

Piper was sitting on Jason’s shoulders and Percy was starting to climb onto Frank. I wondered who would win that chicken fight, should be fun to watch. Hazel was setting up her umbrella next to her beach chair along with Rachel. 

Nico and Will were playing catch with a Frisbee and Leo was making plans on constructing the most elaborate sand castle. I started laying down on my towel when someone came up next to me and laid their towel down next to mine. 

It was Reyna, who I was surprised that she had come along on the trip. She hadn’t been very social since we saved her from Victoria. She had been spending most of her time with Hazel, trying to understand what had happened with her life. In the few times that she had come out to interact with us, she usually was training in the arena and she was tough. Definitely one of our better fighters. I got along pretty well with her, she was very professional and a natural leader. 

She laid down on top of her town and pulled her long braid around to lay across her chest. She gazed out at the ocean with her harsh dark eyes. It was hard to believe, but her eyes were black, not dark brown, but actually black. 

“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” she asked me. It was weird at first when she had started talking to me. Other than Hazel, I was the only one that she had really opened up to. We were very much alike that it seemed easier to her. We didn’t talk a whole lot, but when we did, it was usually about fighting techniques and strategies when fighting. 

“Yes, it really is. I’m glad that we decided to come out here.” We sat there for a while, watching the others play around and let loose. Frank and Percy had just beat Jason and Piper and they were cheering their victories. At least, until Jason came up from behind them and jumped onto Percy’s back toppling them backwards into the water.

Reyna and I started laughing, slowly at first but it quickly became uncontrollable as Jason and Percy started wrestling even more in the water. We finally calmed down after Frank broke up the fight and started dragging Jason out of the water.

Piper followed them out of the water, laughing almost as hard as Reyna and I had been. Percy was the only one left in the water, looking a little sad. “Who is going to be my partner for chicken now Frank? Come on, who wants to go up against me and someone else?” He looked right at me, “Annabeth! Get in here and be my partner! Reyna, you too!” 

She started laughing, but shook her head. “Who is going to be my partner?” Percy asked again.

“I will,” Nico said. He was walking toward the water, giving a small smile at Reyna. Will was watching him with slight surprise. To be honest, we all were a little bit shocked. Nico had only really hung around Will and Hazel since he got here. It was a nice change though, I was glad that everyone was starting to get along better. 

Reyna nodded, then gave me a look, “Ready to lose, angel girl?” she had a slight smile. 

She knew exactly how to push my buttons, challenging me to a contest is almost an assured way to get me to agree. Almost as soon as she said it, I replied with, “You’re going down.”

We both stood up and started walking toward the water. I took off my shirt and put it next to my towel. Then I took off my jean shorts and threw them on top of the shirt. As I looked toward Percy he looked like someone just told him that he had just been elected president. He stood completely motionless until I got right up next to him. 

“What’s with you? Got some seaweed stuck in your brain?” he kept looking at me with his dumbfounded look. I waved my hand in front of his face. “Hello? Earth to Percy!” 

He shook his head and his face took on the same shade as a tomato as he started backing away from me. “Yeah! No I’m here, I just uh- I was thinking that- I mean, you look amazing! Not like you don’t usually look amazing, it’s just that uh-”

I couldn’t help but crack up at him. He was hilarious and adorable all at the same time. “I think you do have some seaweed stuck in your brain. Either that or your vocabulary suddenly became very unimpressive.”

He started chuckling nervously, “Yeah, must’ve been the seaweed. So who is going to be on top of who? I mean, who is going to be on the other’s shoulders?” his face was becoming more flushed by the second. 

“I’ll be on your shoulders, I think I can take Reyna down as long as you can be a strong base for me,” I said in a teasing voice.

A determined look came over his face as he said, “You got it! No one is going to move us!”

After a little bit of awkward maneuvering to get on Percy’s shoulders we got set to fight Reyna and Nico. We were surprised when we turned around and saw Nico on Reyna’s shoulders. Well that was a bit of a twist, I was pretty sure that I could take Reyna, but I wasn’t as sure about Nico. I looked down at Percy, “You still think we can handle this, Seaweed Brain?”

He looked like he could take on the whole world with the amount of confidence, “You bet!” 

We started toward the other two and I locked hands with Nico. We started pushing and pulling against each other, I was trying to get him off balance. Percy grappled with Reyna below, I wasn’t sure who was having the harder time, me or Percy.

I could see the struggle on Nico’s face, but he wasn’t giving up. He jerked me towards my right, almost getting me off balance, but Percy kept us upright. His effort, however seemed to get him off balance more than it did me. As he was teetering backwards, trying to right himself, I felt Percy angle backwards, and Reyna fell forward.

Nico went crashing backwards into the water and Reyna fell flat on her face. Percy must have noticed that Nico was throwing their balance off one way and pulled Reyna in the opposite, sealing their fate. 

“Yeah! We make an awesome team!” Percy was jumping up and down, holding onto my legs. I had to admit that his happiness was infectious. I could feel a smile was spreading across my face.

“Alright Seaweed Brain, let me down, but I don’t want to get too wet yet so go to the shallow end,” as soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have. I saw an evil grin come across his face.

“You don’t want to get wet huh? So, if I suddenly lost my balance that would be bad?”

I scowled at him, “Don’t you even think about it.” I tried to include as much danger in my voice as I could.

That trouble-maker grin suddenly became so large that it took up his whole face. The next thing that I knew, I was falling backwards. As we fell I heard Percy halfheartedly yell, “Oh no!!” I could tell that he was laughing along with his yell.

I was fully submerged, but as soon as I was free from Percy’s grasp I shot up towards the surface. As soon as I broke the surface I started screaming, “PERCY FREAKING JACKSON YOU’D BETTER PRAY TO WHATEVER DEITY YOU PRAY TO THAT I DON’T EVER GET AHOLD OF YOU OTHERWISE YOU WILL BE DEAD FASTER THAN YOU CAN ASK ME FOR FORGIVENESS!”

I looked around and saw him running down the beach away from me, laughing hysterically. Oh he is so dead. I thought, as I walked toward the shore. Once I was free from the water I took off after him. He had a few yards of a head start on me, but I was pretty sure I could catch him. 

He turned around a rocky point, and disappeared from my sight for a little bit, so I poured on the speed as I rounded the point. Once I got around it, however I almost ran right into him. He had come to a stop and was staring off into the distance. I was about to yell at him when I noticed that his face was full of wonder. 

I looked toward where he was looking and I saw a small cabin just off of the shore. I walked a little closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Percy, are you okay?” I asked him.

“I know this place, I’ve been here before,” he said, still looking at the cabin. “The memories are fuzzy, but I know I’ve been at this exact beach. I know that cabin, I used to go there with my mom.”

“Do you want to go up there?” I asked him. “I can head back and tell the other where you are.”

He looked at me, right into my eyes, “Can you come with me?” his sea green eyes pleading me to stay with him. 

“Of course,” I tell him.

He started to walk forward, and as he started walking he reached down and grabbed my hand. I tried to ignore how my heart sped up a little bit when I felt his hand in mine. I liked how it was rough, and yet it was gentle. 

We walked up to the cabin’s door and knocked. There was no answer, so he tried the knob, and it was unlocked. We walked into the cabin, Percy calling out, “Hello? Is anyone here?” but there was no answer. We started walking around, but it looked like it hadn’t been occupied in a while. We went back to a room in the back of the cabin where there was a single bed and a dresser and Percy stopped. 

“This was the room where I slept, I can feel it.”

That’s when we heard a car pull up outside. “Percy, we should get out of here, we don’t want to be found as trespassers.”

He just stood there in shock, trying to take in everything around him. I went to the window and saw a man and woman getting out of a blue Prius, walking to the door, talking quietly. I heard them walk up the porch, when their pace slowed and their talking stopped. I heard the man call out, “Hello? If anyone is here, show yourself. You are on private property and you are trespassing. If you don’t show yourself, we will call the cops!”

That’s when Percy seemed to realize it was time to leave. He slowly walked toward the door out into the cabin. He passed through the doorway and I heard a gasp, followed by, “Percy? Is that, is that you?” 

I followed him through the doorway and I saw the man looking dumbstruck and the woman had her hand over her mouth and she had tears in her eyes. She had long curly brown hair and sparkling blue eyes. I looked to Percy and he had tears in his eyes, along with something new. Recognition, he knew these people. 

“Mom?” he questioned, slowly walking towards her. 

The woman was nodding and she started sobbing as she opened her arms out to him and started walking toward him. When she did that, Percy quickly closed the gap in two strides and scooped up the woman, his mother, in his arms and picked her up. I saw tears streaming down his face, and I would be lying if a few hadn’t escaped my eyes as well.

Percy set the woman down and she held his face in her hands directly in front of her face, studying all the changes. “Oh my God, where have you been Percy? We thought you were dead!” the woman said.

Percy had a look of confusion on his face, “What do you mean dead?”

The man who came in with Percy’s mother walked up, “You disappeared three years ago. You left to run to the store for some ingredients for our dinner and you never came back.”

 

Percy’s confused look didn’t go away, “I don’t remember any of that. I only have my memory from the last three years.”

It was the couple’s turn to look confused now. “What do you mean? You don’t remember us?” the woman asked. “How did you know us, or to come to this place?”

“I was here with some friends,” Percy motioned towards me, and the couple finally seemed to notice me, “We were running along the beach when all of a sudden I got a feeling about this place that I knew that I had been here. We came here to check it out and then you guys came. When I saw you, I just got this feeling from the way you looked at me that I just knew had to be from my mom.”

The woman kept looking at me, I gave a small, awkward wave. “Hi, I’m one of the friends, Annabeth.”

“Hello Annabeth, I’m Sally, this is my husband Paul,” Paul gave a small wave from behind her. She turned her attention back to Percy, “you have grown so much, you need to tell me what you’ve been doing these past three years. We will bring in the food and we can talk. It is your birthday after all.”


	9. Chapter 8: Reunion

Percy

Annabeth had left to go grab the others to join us. I was still in a slight state of shock, I had just found my mother. I could tell it was true, when I looked into her eyes, I just felt at home. When she wrapped her arms around me I felt like I was safe, for the first time in three years. 

Paul had left us alone in the cabin to bring in the food. One of the plates he brought in held a large blue cake. My mom must have noticed my confused look, “Don’t tell me that in the three years you’ve been gone you’ve lost your taste for blue cake?”

“To be honest, I haven’t had much cake period. I did eat anything that was blue when I had the chance, but I wasn’t sure why,” I told her. I had always gravitated toward blue, but looking at the blue cake, something just clicked from my memory. I looked at her, “It was a joke between us wasn’t it?”

A smile came across her face and she nodded, “Yes, my first husband had told us that there was no such thing as blue food, so we made it a point to prove him wrong.”

“First husband?”

Her face fell a little, “Yes, Gabe, I married him a few years after you were born. He helped provide for us, but… well it didn’t work out,” she said rubbing her side.

That’s when I knew that this, Gabe, had hurt us. At least my mom and that seemed to stir up some memories. Nights when a chubby short man came home late, smelling of stale beer and cigars. He would knock things onto the floor, throw my mom into the wall, and then hit me across the wall when I’d try to protect her.

Anger flared deep inside of me. I suddenly found myself hoping that he was dead already, because if he wasn’t, he would be wishing that he was soon.

I was brought back to reality by my mom rubbing my arm looking up at me concerned. My vision cleared and I looked around the room. Paul was standing by the table looking at me scared.

Annabeth suddenly ran into the door way, slightly out of breath, “What’s going on? I could feel your anger from down the beach.”

Mom looked back and forth between us, looking like she was trying to figure out a puzzle. “How can you feel his anger?” she asked Annabeth.

Annabeth looked shocked, “um, I only meant that uh-”

“Annabeth! Thanks for bringing my shirt!” I cut her off before we told mom too much. Walking over to her I could see her thanking me with her eyes. I grabbed my shirt and I pulled it over my head. I turned back toward my mom and she was looking at us suspiciously. 

“Percy, can you help me carry some bowls inside?” she asked me. She walked towards us and stepped between me and Annabeth, looking at me with an evil grin, much like my own.

“Yeah sure,” I said. I nodded to Annabeth, “I’ll be right back I guess. I’m assuming the others are coming soon?” I asked her as I walked away.

She nodded to me, “They were packing up and then were headed here. I will help Paul in here,” she said pointing into the cabin.

I nodded to her, then I turned around and followed my mom back to the car. She was standing at the back of the car, leaning up against the trunk laughing to herself.

“So you disappear for three years, then decide to show up here and surprise your mother, on your birthday, with a girlfriend?”

I started choking, “What?! Annabeth is not my girlfriend!” My head was spinning around, trying to figure out where she got that idea. “She is one of my biggest enemies! Plus she is an annoying know-it-all who I can’t stand!”

She chuckled a little more, “That’s how the best ones always start Percy. When I met your father, Poseidon, I couldn’t stand him. We grew up down the street from each other and so we got to know each other really well. He was always starting arguments in class or playing his music too loud next door or trying to get me to ditch class. But I grew to love him, the qualities that I hated originally, became endearing, also he was kind, gentle and loving. The only person that I’ve loved more than him, is you.” 

She was looking at me, but the way her eyes looked, it was almost as if she was looking into the past, seeing the scenes unfold in front of her. She finally focused back on me after a minute, “So what I’m saying, be careful who you find irritating. They may just become the person you can’t see yourself without.”

“Well, if you knew everything between us, you’d see that it won’t ever happen.” I wished I could tell her everything. She felt so safe and so much like home that I wanted to just tell her all about me being a devil and being destined to fight the biggest, meanest devil that the world has seen since Lucifer. But I couldn’t, not if I wanted to keep her safe.

“I’m sure that’ll change with time,” she said to me. She reached up and placed a hand on my cheek. “But I won’t bother you anymore about it. Just remember what I’ve said. Don’t close your heart from the world, there is so much love in it that if you don’t let some of it in, you will be miserable.”

I nodded, it felt good to have her hand on my cheek. 

“Now, let’s get this food inside before the rest of your friends get here.”

≈

After we had all stuffed ourselves of my mother’s exquisite cooking we were sitting around a bonfire on the beach. The big topic seemed to be me, my mom was telling us stories about me when I was little. It was a little embarrassing, but after a little while I decided that I needed to get away from everyone. I stood up and started walking away, until I heard Jason call out to me. 

“Hey Percy, you alright?”

I turned back and gave them a smile, “Yeah, just gotta get a little air. You guys keep talking, I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

I walked slowly toward the edge of the water, stopping just out of its reach. I put my hands into the pockets of my sweat pants. Looking out over the water I felt at peace, it calmed my buzzing mind. I couldn’t believe how crazy today had been, finding my mom, learning about my past. Finding out that today was my 22nd birthday.

Then there was the whole thing about my mom thinking that Annabeth was my girlfriend. What the hell was that all about? We didn’t act like a couple did we? Sure she was really pretty, and smart and fun to be around. But she was an angel and I was a devil. Her stare was so scary that it would make anyone quiver in fear, those gray eyes were harsh. But they were also beautiful, especially when she laughed, they seemed to take on a silver tint when she was happy; much different than the ominous dark clouds rolling in from the storm of her anger.

“Hey there seaweed brain, everything alright?”

I jumped when I heard Annabeth walk up behind me. As she came up and stood on my ride side looking out over the water, I could see her eyes shining from the moonlight; they looked really pretty. I shook my head hard, trying to get those thought out of my head. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just trying to process everything from today. I mean, can you believe that we found my mom?”

She let out a small laugh, “It is definitely hard to believe. Especially since she is so pretty, I guess you get your looks from your dad,” she said as she nudged her shoulder into my side. 

I looked down, trying to put on my best offended face, “Excuse you Annabeth Chase! I happen to think I look quite handsome, I thought angels were supposed to be sweet and nice!”

She gave a crooked smile, “That’s just how we get you to let your guard down, when you fall in love with us, that’s when the teasing really gets started.”

Love, whoa, where did that come from. 

She must have realized what she said as soon as I did because her eyes grew to double their normal size. “That’s not what I meant!” 

That’s when I started laughing at her; then she followed suit, pretty soon we were laughing so hard we were crying. I turned around to look at our group back at the camp fire. I looked at my mom and she was looking at us. She had a smile that was touching her ears and she gave me a thumbs up.

I quickly turned around and reached up with my left hand to start rubbing the back of my neck, praying that my face wasn’t as red as it felt. That’s when I felt her head fall to rest on my right arm. She let out a sigh and her shoulders relaxed. I tried to not imagine my mom grinning even more than she was before, but I had a feeling that was probably the case. My face felt so hot that I was probably glowing in the night.

I won’t lie, it felt nice resting on my arm. I looked down and I saw that her eyes were shut. She looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to disturb her. I mean, she didn’t get much rest as it was, so it would be mean to disturb even the smallest rests. So I just looked back out over the ocean.

“Percy, are you glad that you joined us?” she finally asked after a few minutes of silence. “I mean, everything about your life has changed since you joined us. Do you resent us for that?”

I looked down at her, she was still looking out over the ocean. “Of course not Annabeth. Of course, before you came along I thought my life was great, but it wasn’t; or at least it wouldn’t have been for much longer if I had been forced to work for Kronos. Don’t think for a second that I regret meeting you and going with you to get intel on Kronos.”

She looked up and locked eyes with me, “Even though I’ve caused you to get your ass kicked multiple times?” I could hear a tiny amount of teasing in her voice, but it was covered by a lot of worry.

I gave her a smile, “Don’t worry about it Wise Girl, I’m sure that you’ll think of a way to make it up to me.”

She nodded, then she turned back to the ocean and set her head back on my arm. I decided to comfort her a little more, so I moved my arm around to wrap around her shoulders. When I did that she wrapped her arm back around my waist. 

I felt a little uncomfortable at first. It was the first time that I had really embraced anyone like this. But it started to feel good after a few minutes. It started to feel similar to how I felt when I hugged my mom. This felt safe, it felt right. 

We may be enemies, but for that moment, I decided that it didn’t matter who was what. In that moment, we were friends; very close friends perhaps, but we were friends who would fight and kill for each other. 

I could almost feel my mom’s smile boring into my back. I could hear her voice in the back of my mind as well. “I told you so,” I could hear her saying. I shook my head slightly, smiling. I wouldn’t admit that she was right, but I also wouldn’t say that she was wrong.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some dark stuff in this chapter and some possible triggers. I will put a summary at the end of the story in the notes. I bolded before and after

It had been a week since we went to the beach. Since then, we had gotten closer as a group. We still had some tensions, which was to be expected, but it wasn’t anything major.

I had been trying to spend as much time with Annabeth as I could. After my mom lectured me a second time right before we left the beach, I decided that I shouldn’t hide my feelings. Especially when Will had dropped some hints that she might’ve been feeling the same way.

She didn’t explicitly say that she liked me, but I caught her lingering glances. I also saw the way she blushed and looked at the ground when I’d walk around without a shirt. No one else got that kind of a response from her. It was kind of funny making her squirm, so I found any excuse to take my shirt off.

The only problem, was that she got her revenge. When we would spar, she would flash a smile, or wink at me, which would cause my brain to short circuit. When that happened, she would always pin me and give me a smug look. Followed by a, “Shouldn’t get so distracted Seaweed Brain.”

Which I’d counter with, “If my opponent wasn’t so stunning, I wouldn’t be,” followed by a wink.

That would always make her turn scarlet and let me up.

That wasn’t the only friendship I was making though. Piper and I started hanging out more. She was actually pretty cool, for a holy girl. We both liked the same punk rock music and she had almost as much sass as I did. Almost. 

Plus we enjoyed teaming up to pick on Jason. But it didn’t last long, because Annabeth would come to his rescue. It got to be pretty comical during some points.

I hung out with Frank more as well. We would spar every day and I got to the point where I could hold my own against him. Then we’d watch Jason and Leo square off. They were good together and became easy friends.

I also started working with Hazel on a daily basis. She and Annabeth decided that I needed to develop my magical abilities more. Since I rarely used them, they needed more work. 

“You have astounding potential lying dormant inside of you,” Hazel told me one day. “We just need to unlock it. I believe your magical ability is tied to your emotions, same as your fighting skill.”

So we had been practicing daily on tapping into my magic reserves. We made some success but not much. It was hard to tap into my emotions, mostly due to the fact that I was scared of hurting my friends. The one time I used magic with Victoria I demolished an entire building. I wasn’t ready to repeat that.

My life seemed to be getting better, except for my dreams. Usually my dreams were pretty normal, but after we went to the beach. I kept having nightmares.

At least I thought they were nightmares, but they were too vivid. Scenes where my mom was hit by short, fat man. Then he would turn on me. It really freaked me out. 

I would wake with an image of his beady brown eyes and his laughter ringing in my ears.

Hazel told me that my memory was coming back. Since I was reunited with my mom, a huge part of my past, it wasn’t all that surprising.

Luckily, not all of the memories were bad. I’d started remembering little things like how my mom used to work at a candy store and would sneak me some samples whenever she could.

I remembered more about our trips to the beach cabin in Montauk. I also remembered her marrying Paul, I was the best man. I also gave her away, I remembered walking her down the aisle.

I didn’t have many good memories, but I clung to the ones that I did.

≈

One night, Annabeth and I had been on our nightly dusk run. We both had decided last week we needed to go out and run each night to get fresh air.

We would stay within a couple miles of Hazels, but sometimes the route would change. Tonight we were going through a rough part of town.

We passed by an alley when I came to a dead stop. I smelled something that I woke up to so many times lately. I was sure that the smell would be forever burned into my brain. Beer and cheap cigars. I knew that it could have been anyone who smelled like that, but I knew it was him.

“Percy?” Annabeth asked, walking back toward me with a puzzled look on her face. “What is it? Why did you stop?”

I turned to look down the alley. “There is something down this alley, we need to go down here.” I started to walk, but was quickly grabbed by my shirt and pulled back toward the sidewalk. Annabeth looked shocked.

“Percy, no. I feel something bad down that way. Something that we aren’t equipped to handle right now. We can come back when we are ready.”

I knew she was right, but I didn’t care. “Then go back without me, I’ll go alone,” I said coldly. “I don’t know if this thing will still be here later, and I need to see what it is.”

I started walking forward again when this time she grabbed my hand instead of my shirt. I turned to face her and I saw how scared she was. “Just wait, at least let me call the others so they know where we are. That way if they don’t hear from us, they know where to look for us.”

I conceded and she looked slightly relieved. She called Frank and told him that if they didn’t heard from us in thirty minutes to come looking for us. She gave our location and hung up.

We started walking down the damp, dark alley slowly. The further down we went, the worse the smell got. My nightmares started playing back in my mind. If I hadn’t been holding Annabeth’s hand, I would have thought I was back in them. She was the only thing anchoring me to reality.

Halfway between the blocks, there was a rundown building entrance. All the windows were broken, there was graffiti everywhere and the scent that we had been following seemed to pour out of the building in a fog.

“In there,” I said quietly.

Annabeth looked like she wanted to argue, but she only nodded.

I let go of her hand and went up to the door and kicked it in. it flew off the hinges and disappeared in to the dark room. I went in first and looked around the room. I reached my hand out toward Annabeth, grabbing her hand.

We slowly walked into the next room, following the trail of the scent. As it grew stronger, I felt more anxious. I kept telling myself that I needed to keep it together for Annabeth, I had to keep my head. I wanted to break down and curl into a little ball from all the memories that were flooding back. 

When we got into the middle of the room, I stopped dead in my tracks, causing Annabeth to run into me. I heard a low laugh. An evil laugh that I knew well from my nightmares.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the punk.”

I knew that voice, and my insides were crawling. My skin felt like it was covered in bugs, my brain told me to run, but my body wouldn’t respond.

“Gabe,” I whispered. I wasn’t sure where his name came from, nut I knew it was him.

“You remembered me! Such a good son!” said the short, fat, balding man sauntering into the room. His voice dripping with sarcasm.

“You are not my father,” I said defiantly through clenched teeth.

He started walking in a circle around us. “You sure about that kid? If memory serves me correctly, I made you and that pretty little mother of your my bitches.”

My anger flared, “Don’t you dare talk about my mother!” I roared. “I will kill you!” I dropped Annabeth’s hand and charged the short, smelly man. Just as I was about to grab him, he snapped and disappeared.

I stumbled through the air where he stood a second before. I spun around to see if Annabeth had an eye on him, but she was gone. My heart dropped to my stomach. Where did she go?

“Annabeth?” I asked softly, hoping to hide my fear. After a few seconds I couldn’t take it anymore. I cried out desperately, “Annabeth!”

“Oh, she is over here with me punk.”

I looked up to a landing on the second floor. Gabe was standing behind Annabeth, a knife to her throat.

“How did you teleport like that?” I yelled at him.

“Isn’t it obvious? Although, you never were very bright,” he said with a smirk. 

I couldn’t think straight with his disgusting scent swimming around me. Then I realized that wasn’t his scent, it was an aura of power. The power of a devil, which lets off a feeling like one’s soul. Gabe was rotten to the core, so his aura would reflect that. 

“You’re a devil,” I said quietly.

“Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! You aren’t as dumb as they say you are kid.”

“How long have you been a devil?” I asked.

He looked up and away, like he was trying to retrieve a memory. “Long before you and your mommy came around. Kronos made sure that I got the darkness in you at a young age.” He winked at me and my world seemed to collapse.

“Kronos? How did he even know about me?” I fell to my knees.

“Oh he’s had his eye on you for a while punk. This prophecy that you are a part of, have they told you the whole thing?”

“Percy don’t listen-“

“Quiet Blondie!” Gabe pressed the blade tighter against her throat. “Young Percy here should know the truth. I’d hate to have to hurt you before it’s the right time.”

His stare got even colder. “What truth?” I asked. “They said that they have seen me standing over Kronos in victory. What more could there be?”

“Ah, I can see how they say it like that. You see, the part that they left out is the victory could be that you destroy Kronos, or you host his spirit and rule the world.”

As soon as I heard that, I didn’t even feel like I was in my body any more. The rational part of my brain told me that he was lying. It told me that he was only trying to rile me up. But as soon as I looked at Annabeth, I knew that he was telling the truth. She looked ashamed, she couldn’t look me in the eye.

“Is this true?” I asked her.

“Percy, you have to understand,” she started to say. But I didn’t want to hear any more lies. I needed the truth.

“Is this true?!” I shouted.

She looked to the ground, “Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’d only hope that you would make the right choice. I knew that there is good in you and I only hoped that you would choose to help us. It needs to be your choice.”

I felt my anger rise, partially at Annabeth for lying. But more at Kronos, because he had been manipulating my life since I was tiny. He sent this monster to hurt me; to hurt my mother. That was unforgivable; I could never side with Kronos after that. Yes, I was upset with Annabeth for lying, but that wasn’t the same as hurting my family.

“That doesn’t matter right now. Gabe, release her, or else you’ll regret it,” I could hear the edge in my voice.

He looked slightly confused, “What do you mean? Don’t you want to kill her for lying? She manipulated you to turn against your master and your kind.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I am pissed about that, but what you’ve done is far worse. You manipulated me way before she ever did. But you used my mother to hurt me, and that is something she would never do. Now, I say again, release her”

He didn’t move. His expression was starting to change, from confusion to fear.

“I said release her!” I yelled. I was starting to see red.

 

*POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING WILL PUT A.N. WHEN SCENE IS DONE WITH SUMMARY IN AUTHOR’S NOTES*

“Oh, but blondie here wants to stay with me. We are getting to know each other.” He sniffed her hair, loudly. “Oh, she smells lovely. You do know how to pick ‘em. You don’t mind if I keep you here do ya sweetie?”

She squirmed a bit, but she couldn’t do much with a blade at her throat. Her expression started to change from anger to fear. I could see some blood coming from her neck. My anger flared. Hurting my mom is unforgivable, but hurting Annabeth as well, this man was going to regret he ever heard the name Percy Jackson.

Suddenly, his evil grin changed to fear. I could hear a scary laugh from somewhere. Then I realized, the scary laugh was coming from me.

Gabe wasn’t the only one who was scared. Annabeth looked absolutely terrified.  
“You are going to regret challenging me punk,” he growled.

Suddenly I felt a crushing presence on my mind. Everything around me went pitch black. That’s when I started to hear the screaming. It was my mother, I could hear her screaming in the other room. But I wasn’t in the run down building anymore, I was in a trashed apartment. All over the floor was beer cans and dirty dishes.

I ran room to room looking for her, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.

Do you remember how I used to hit you two? Gabe’s voice echoed inside my head. She never knew how bad I hit you though.

The scene around me changed. My mom opened the door to see a young me with a black eye and a bloody lip.

Until this day. She came home early from work when I was teaching you a lesson for being a mouthy little shit.

My mom screamed again, the same blood curdling scream from earlier. She grabbed Gabe and stopped him from hitting me again. She really shouldn’t have stopped me from punishing you. It only made my angrier. In the vision, Gabe grabbed hold of my mother’s arm and threw her into another room and followed behind her. The next thing that I heard from the room was hitting and my mom begging him to stop. 

I felt like my mind was going to implode on itself. I couldn’t take it, my anger was about to boil over. You should have seen what I did to her when you weren’t around. How about I show you?

“No! I won’t let you mess with me anymore!” I couldn’t contain my rage. I lashed out with all the anger that I had. I tried to pull from my core to lash out with any magic that I could to hurt Gabe. My anger seemed to ignite fire in my vision, lighting everything around me.

*SCENE DONE LOOK IN AUTHOR’S NOTES FOR SUMMARY IF NEEDED*

What are you doing? Stop that! Gabe yelled in my head. 

His panic was all the motivation I needed. I turned up the rage and turned up the heat on the fire around me. I wasn’t sure what it was doing to him, but I didn’t really care.

Slowly the darkness faded and I started seeing my actual surroundings, I was still kneeling in the room of the run down building. I looked up to the landing where Gabe had been holding Annabeth hostage. Annabeth had been freed from Gabe’s clutches and she was backing away. Gabe was on the floor yelling in pain. He was grabbing his head, like he was trying to hold it together. 

“How’d you do this? What have you done to me you punk?” His flesh seemed to be glowing. But it was more than that, it was burning away. Almost like the fire I was unleashing in the nightmare he pulled me in had ignited something inside of him. 

I felt more confident, laughing even a little bit and poured even more of my magic into the flames. I wanted to make an inferno inside of him. He needed to pay for every time he struck my mother, for the cut he put on Annabeth’s neck, every time he even had a thought about hurting someone. He deserved to feel every lick of the flame, every flare up.

His body started swelling like it was swelling from all the fire. I knew that his body couldn’t take much more and it would unleash the flames. Annabeth was standing too close to him.

“Annabeth get out of there!” I yelled.

I didn’t have to tell her twice. No sooner had I said something she shook out of her shock and jumped down from the landing to the ground floor with me. She started walking backwards away from me, still looking terrified.

When I looked back up to Gabe, he was slowly starting to burn to ashes. “Curse you Percy Jackson! You punk!” then he crumpled into a pile of gray ash.

I felt relief that he had been beaten. But when I looked toward Annabeth, she was looking at me like I was Gabe.

“Annabeth, what’s wrong? I had to destroy him, he deserved worse for hurting you and my mother.”

She rubbed her throat where it was cut. “Percy, Gabe took over your mind and was going to crush you. Make you insane, but when you lashed out, you basically set off a nuclear bomb off inside his body.”

I felt kind of like a bad ass. “Isn’t that good though? I used my magic to destroy someone.”

She shook her head, “Percy, simply destroying someone with magic isn’t necessarily bad, but you look like you were enjoying the power the anger brought to you that Gabe was provoking. That is what Kronos wants from you.”

I could see some tears coming from her eyes. Not tears of joy, or even sadness; they were tears of fear. Gabe had scared her, but she never looked terrified. All of the sheer terror she felt was from me. That broke my heart a little bit.  
I stood up, and looked Annabeth in the eye, “Annabeth, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you like that. I only wanted to protect you, and all the things he showed me, it took me to a dark place. Then when he hurt you, I just… I felt like I had this monster inside of me that I just couldn’t control.”

She slowly started walking toward me. “Percy, I understand why you did it, and I appreciate your concern, but you looked like you had already accepted Kronos.”

I started getting angry again at the mention of him. “I will never help him.” I was talking through my clenched teeth. “He has caused me so much pain that I could never support him.” I was getting so mad that I could see some of my fiery aura actually show around me.

I was looking at the floor, thinking about the pain. But all of a sudden my view was filled with two stormy gray eyes right in front of me. I felt strong hands on both sides of my face. Annabeth was inches from my face and she was looking into my eyes so deep that it felt like she was looking into my soul.

“Percy Jackson, stop right now. Look into my eyes and concentrate on me here right now. I am not hurt and I won’t let anyone else hurt you. Listen to my voice, feel my hands, concentrate on the now; not on the past.”

Slowly I relaxed, I felt my hands relax; I hadn’t even known they were clenched in the first place. Annabeth was acting as my anchor again, keeping me here in reality. My vision was clearing, no longer tinted red.

I could see her eyes with more detail than I had ever before. There were little blue flecks inside her iris. But I also saw tears welling up behind her eyes. I didn’t want her to cry, I reached up and wiped the tears away. I wrapped my arms around her and we fell down to our knees. 

“I’m sorry Annabeth. He just showed me the way he treated me and my mom. I heard her scream, I remember everything. I just… He needed to pay for his crimes, but I don’t want to lose control like that.”

“Shh, just relax for now. We will talk about it when we get back home. What do ya say that we head back?”

I nodded, I was thankful that we would have a few blocks to just walk without needing to do much. I had a lot to think about; I just discovered this terribly dark side of myself, and I didn’t know what to do with it. 

We stood up after a few minutes and started walking back home. Annabeth called Frank and told her that we were on the way. I heard him ask what we had been checking out, and Annabeth brushed it off saying we would discuss it later. I was relieved when she said that, I wasn’t quite ready to hear a recount of everything quite yet.

As we walked down the street, Annabeth’s arms around me holding me close, I felt truly thankful for her. I was so thankful that I looked directly up to the sky and thanked God for sending me this guardian angel. Even though I probably wasn’t supposed to be thanking God for anything, being a devil and all. But I’d never been good about following rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically Gabe is super creepy with Annabeth while holding her hostage. He also projected his memories of abusing Percy and his mother, hinting at really bad things to his mother.


	11. Chapter 10: Darkness Consumes

“I’m never using magic again,” I said defiantly. I was sitting at the long table back at Hazel’s home. I was next to Annabeth, who sat at one end of the table. Hazel at the opposite side.

We just told the whole group about the encounter with Gabe. Hazel leaned forward on the table and examined me closely. It made me uncomfortable.

“Percy, I understand that magic can be frightening when it gets out of control. But that’s why you must continue your training with me. The more you understand and develop your abilities, you will be able to control it from taking over you like it did tonight.”

I shook my head, “No, I had control, too much of it. I could have stopped, or made his death quick and painless, but I wanted him to suffer. I would have made him suffer more if Annabeth hadn’t been there to pull me back from the brink,” I turned to look at Annabeth. “I don’t want to lose control like that ever again. Not when it puts my friends at risk.”

She looked deep in thought, like she was analyzing what to do. She let out a breath and shook her head, “Percy, you can’t do that. We need you to be at your absolute best to fight Kronos. Hazel will help you, we all will. I know that when the time comes, you will make the right decision.”

“But what if I lose control? What if I’m more of a danger than a savior?”

“Percy,” Frank said sternly. I turned to look at him. He looked me directly in the eye, “You are a good person. We trust you, and we know that you won’t betray us.” He had a look of unwavering confidence.

I looked to Will, Nico, Jason and the others. With each face that I saw, each of them was nodding in agreement with Frank. All with the same confidence that he had. Never in my life had I ever felt a greater sense of belonging than in that moment.

≈

After we left the room, I caught up with Annabeth. “We need to talk. My room, five minutes,” I said coldly and walked away without looking at her. She had some things that she needed to answer for.

When she showed up, I had been rehearsing the conversation numerous times in my head, trying to remember all the points that I had and all the things that I needed answered. But when I saw the look of fear on her face, a lot of the things I had planned on saying went out the window.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked quietly.

“Why did you lie to me about the prophecy?” I said, trying to control the anger in my voice.

She looked down at the floor. “I knew that was coming,” she took a deep breath, bracing herself. “I’m sorry about lying Percy. I was worried that if we told you that, it would influence your choice to help us. It needed to be your decision, not one you felt forced into. You are a good person Percy, with a good soul. I knew you would make the best decision.”

“A good soul? Did you see what I did to Gabe? I’m an animal, a monster! How can you say that I have a good soul?”

She shook her head, “You were provoked, I’m not sure what he showed you, but the look on your face, I could feel the pain you were in. He was torturing you, that’s not your fault.”

I went to my bed and sat down. “He showed me my past. My mom being beat, him hitting me. I could feel all of it, the sting from his hand, the anger and hatred I had toward him. He showed me-” I choked on my words. “He showed me that Kronos has been influencing my life since he sent Gabe to find me back then.”

She came over and sat next to me, rubbing my back. “Percy, I am so sorry.”

I felt some tears roll down my cheek.

“We are going to make Kronos pay for everything Percy, I swear to you that we will.”

“That’s not what bothers me,” I whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“You saw my mother, how kind she is. What if I lose control like that again? She would be ashamed of me. I’m not good enough for her, I’m not good enough for anyone.”

She quickly moved in front of me and held my face in her hands. “Percy, stop. You are a good person. I’ve felt the good in you. We’ve all done bad things, but that doesn’t mean that you are a bad person.”

I shook my head and looked at the floor, “How can you say that? I’m a monster, who would even want me around?”

She pulled my face level with hers again, “I do Percy. I want you around.”

I was dumbstruck, “But, the way you looked at me, you looked at me like you didn’t know who I was.”

She nodded, “I will admit, I was scared, but not of you. I was scared for you. I was afraid that your power would consume you. I didn’t want to lose you to it, but I knew you would come back from the edge.”

I looked into her beautiful gray eyes, and I saw someone who actually cared about me.

I couldn’t hold her gaze for long, it felt like she was looking into my soul. But every time that I looked away I was brought back to hers, and she kept looking at me, totally serious.

Finally, I gave up and lowered my head with a sigh. She did the same and our foreheads rested on each other’s. We sat there like that for a while in silence.

“This is nice,” I said.

“What? Trying to calm each other down after we almost died?” she said with a hint of humor in her voice.

“No,” I chuckle, “just sitting here. No one bothering us, no training or drawing up strategies. Just you and me.”

She smiled, “Yeah, it is. Maybe we should do this more often.”

I nodded, “I like that idea. How about every night? We can talk about anything and everything that comes to our minds,” I said hopefully.

She sat up straight and she made her thinking face. Finally she nodded, “I think we can make that work.”

My heart did a little tap dance. I enjoyed time with Annabeth, and time alone was going to be great.

“But not tonight,” she said. “It’s late and we’ve been through a lot.”

Even though I hated to admit it, she was right. I nodded, “Yeah, I’m pretty tired. Good night.”

She stood up and made her way towards the door. Before she got halfway, she stopped. Turning around quickly, she came up to me and kissed my cheek. Then just as fast, she turned around and walked to the door. Standing in the doorway, she turned back to look at me, red in the face with a big smile, she said, “Good night Percy,” and she disappeared down the hall.

I laid down on my bed, arms behind my head and smile on my face. As I lay there, recalling the events of the day, I just chuckled at the craziness. The last thought that went through my head was how different things had been with Annabeth from our start, and how I liked the new turn of events.

≈

“Percy, I told you, we don’t have to kill Kronos! We are going to try to capture him first!” Annabeth was getting really mad at me. We had been practicing all week and I kept trying to convince her that capturing him was a bad idea. He needed to die.

With a week to go, tensions were high. I’d been training almost non-stop, both with weapons and with magic. I was reluctant at first, after Gabe, but after talking with Annabeth and Hazel again I realized they were right.

“Why are you so set on keeping him alive?” I asked. “You’ve said it yourself that he is the most dangerous devil ever to walk the Earth.”

She looked so angry that it was a little scary. But I wouldn’t back down. I knew in my heart that he couldn’t and would be captured. I had a strong feeling that if we took him alive, he would kill himself in a way that would take as many of us with him.

She got so frustrated that she threw her hands in the air and stormed off. That only made me more frustrated. I used my sword on the dummy in front of me. 

Once I was finished, and the dummy lay in pieces, Frank walked up to me. He looked worried, but he came up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be too hard on her. Her past has been complicated. Especially when it comes to the person who is hosting Kronos.”

“You mean…” I had to think back to when we saw the devil. “Luke?”

Frank nodded with a solemn look on his face.

“What happened with them?” I asked.

“That’s for her to say,” and with that, he walked away.

I decided to call it a day. I put away my sword and walked to the kitchen. After grabbing an apple, I walked to my room. I opened the door and I saw Annabeth pacing in my room, staring off into space.

“Annabeth, what are you doing here?”

She looked up to me, tears rolling down her face, “We need to talk. You deserve to know why I don’t want you to kill him.”

I nodded and sat down on the bed, she sat down next to me. 

“I met Luke when I was seven. We went to Catholic school together. His dad abandoned him and his mom couldn’t take care of him. My parents weren’t ever together and he re-married, she never really liked me. She convinced him to send me to the school so they didn’t have to deal with me. We bonded over the fact that we were both abandoned.

“He hated it there, he hated religion. He used to ask, ‘How can God love us and want us to be happy but then allow all of us to suffer?’ He started to rebel from the curriculum, and I blindly followed him. We hung out with a girl named Thalia, who was just like us. I looked up to them, they were the coolest people I knew.

“Once we turned eighteen and we left the school, Luke got worse. He started drinking, I tried to control him, keep him from going too far, but it never worked.

“One night, he got really drunk and got behind the wheel. I couldn’t convince him to not drive, so I climbed into the car with Thalia in the back, hoping that I could convince him to not do anything stupid. But he wanted to go faster, Thalia and I were both terrified, but he wouldn’t stop.” She stopped talking because her tears were coming back now. I wrapped an arm around her, trying to comfort her.

“The semi-truck came out of nowhere, there was no way that we could stop in time. I blacked out and when I woke up, we were upside down in a ditch. The last thing I saw before I died was Luke as he closed his eyes, and they didn’t open. I watched him die, then I died.

“I woke up in heaven where they offered me this job. I felt like I had failed Luke, so maybe I could make amends with this job.”

We sat in silence for a minute. Finally I said, “Annabeth, I am so sorry. I didn’t know.”

Another tear rolled down her cheek, “It’s alright; you just needed to understand why I want to save him.”

I reached up and wiped the tear away. “Still, I didn’t know you had feelings for him.”

She shook her head, then looked at me. “It’s not like that, at least, not anymore. When I was younger he was the best. He was always there for me, I thought we could have our own little family, since our real ones sucked. But he changed. After I died, I thought about it, and I realized that I only idolized him. I just want to have the chance to save him.”

I nodded, “We will try to save him Annabeth.”

She smiled, “Thanks, I should go. We have a busy couple of days coming up.”

“Yeah, goodnight,” I said as she left.

≈

“Alright, everyone knows what they are going to do?” Annabeth looked around to everyone. The whole group was standing around the war table. A map of Kronos’ camp was spread out over the table. With the latest intelligence from angel flyovers, we could tell that number of devils and monsters had grown considerably. It was a small army.

No one around the table looked too excited, but we knew what we had to do. Rachel was the only one who was not going. If she was captured, the enemy would use her for horrible reasons. 

When no one had any objections, Annabeth looked to me, “I know this looks grim, but we can do this, we have to.”

People made sounds of agreement, but they still looked terrified. I needed to inspire them, needed to inspire my friends.

“Look, everyone,” they all turned to look at me. “I know this seems like an impossible task, but we can do this. You all are some of the bravest people I’ve met. I don’t see anyone else standing up to take care of this threat. I’m proud to know all of you, and call you friends. If we work together and use our training, we will win the day!”

The seemed to perk up, determined looks and nods let me know they felt a little better. We grabbed our weapons and headed to face the enemy.

≈

We got to the compound as the sun was going down. Annabeth took Frank, Jason and Nico to sneak into the basement through a hidden escape tunnel. I would be going with Hazel, Will, Leo, Piper and Reyna through the camp, planting spells, traps and explosives to take out large amounts of enemies.

It was tough to sneak through all of those devils, but eventually we got through and made it to the gate of the mansion. When we were set to try and break the bars of the fence, Hazel and I set off the magical traps while Leo and Reyna set off the explosives they planted.

It was chaos; sirens were blaring, people were running around and shouting orders. It was the perfect distraction to use magic to cut the bars and the other team to sneak through the house.

Reyna and Piper guarded our backs while we cut. It wasn’t really need because no one was paying attention to us. The hardest part of the task was getting through the magic that protected the bars.

I’d hoped the other team was having better luck. They weren’t expected to run into any problems. They were supposed to get close to Kronos while we distract him with the explosives and storming the mansion.

Finally, we cut through the bars. One-by-one we crawled through the hole in the fence. Most of the guards that were in the yard had left to the safety the mansion offered. The couple that didn’t hide stood firm to fight. I looked over to Reyna, the only other person through the fence who wasn’t helping the others. We charged the guards and quickly destroyed them. 

My sword was like an extension of my arm. We worked together as a team, Piper would distract one while Reyna came up behind him and cut him down. Hazel would shoot a spell at the next which caused the demon to become off balanced while I cut her down with my sword.

When we were all through, we walked up to the double doors into the home. The doors were wooden, and carved ornately. I looked back to the group, “shall we knock?” Piper walked up next to me and we kicked with all our power at the doors. They flew open, revealing a large entry room into the house.

We rushed inside the mansion, blades drawn, ready to fight. I expected devils every few feet, all trying to kill me. But instead the room was empty.

I heard clapping from above me. Looking up, I saw Kronos standing with multiple devils on each side. He had a smile on his face that set a chill down my spine.

“Percy Jackson, so glad that you could join us. We have a whole party waiting for you.”

He snapped his fingers and some devils brought forth the other group. Annabeth, Frank, Jason and Nico were all bound and gagged. They didn’t look hurt, just roughed up, but it still set my anger ablaze. 

“Let them go Kronos! Or I swear to God that you will regret it.”

He smiled, “I doubt that, because I can feel the darkness in your heart. Even now, it is growing. You are trying to suppress it, but I hold the key to unlocking it. When I do, you will join me.”

“I will never join you!” I yelled. “Not after all the pain you’ve caused me.” I was trying to keep a level head, I didn’t want to let my anger cloud my mind.

“We will see, you Percy. We will see,” he said.

He drew a blade, it was shaped like s scythe, silver and looked so sharp it could cut air. He examined it then looked at my friends. “Tell me, which of your friends can you live without?” He looked at me with an eyebrow raised. “Which ones are you willing to sacrifice?”

Immediately, I knew what he was going to do. He was going to hurt them, to try and make me angry but that’s what he wanted, I had to stay strong, “I won’t play your games Kronos!”

He walked to Nico, and put the knife to his throat.

“Stop it, while you still have a chance” I said, trying to stay calm.

“Guess you can live without this one,” he said. He removed the knife and moved toward Jason. He put the tip against his throat, I heard Piper whimper behind me. Jason looked at me with a mean face, I could almost hear him in my head telling me to not give in.

When I didn’t say anything, Kronos shook his head. “Wrong again I guess. How about big boy over here?” he held the point of the blade over Frank’s heart. I could see Frank’s face twinge in pain. The blade was probably digging into his chest.

“Kronos, I said stop!” I said a little louder than before. I could see Hazel tense out of the corner of my vision. I wanted to attack and save them all, but it was too risky.

“You’re stronger than I thought Percy Jackson. Not to worry, the best is yet to come.” He walked slowly to Annabeth. He put his hand on her cheek and she winced away from him. 

A fire started in my gut, I clenched my fists. “Kronos, if you don’t stop, you will regret it for the rest of your short life,” my voice sounded like a growl.

He looked intrigued, “I like this reaction, let’s keep going.” He put the knife to her neck and cut lightly. The fire turned to an inferno, but I held onto the small shred of self-control I had left.

“You’re sick Kronos. I will destroy you with my bare hands. Now let her go!” I yelled.

“Hmm, you are good, you’ve improved your self-control. I can tell you are struggling. However, I have insurance. Nakamura!”

From behind the mass of devils, the one-eyed man from our first trip here came out. He was leading a woman who was bound. My heart dropped to the floor.

“Mom…”

An evil smile spread across the face of Kronos. “You know, the only reason I knew about your mother was because of you. I had spirits follow you, and when you two found each other, her fate was sealed.”

“Stop, please Kronos, this doesn’t involve her.” My voice quivered. I didn’t care that I sounded desperate, because I was. 

He took out a different blade. This one was black as night and had a lot of jagged edges, it looked like pure evil. He placed the tip directly under her sternum. She looked down at me with tears in her eyes.

Kronos’s smile grew, “I told you that I would break you Percy Jackson. I told you that I would make your heart dark and you would give into me. You could’ve saved all those you love, but you chose to defy me. Let this be a lesson that you shall never forget!”

I shook my head, tears springing up in my eyes and flowing like a river. When I looked up at her, she didn’t look scared. She looked like she accepted what was going to happen. She smiled and mouthed “I love you.”

As soon as she did, Kronos shoved his blade into her all the way to the handle.

I felt my world fall from underneath me, and I felt the fire consume me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't hate me for this!!!
> 
> I re-uploaded the chapter after looking over it and deciding that I wanted to add on some parts and change a few things to sound better. Thank you for your support!!!


	12. Chapter 11: A Light in the Dark

Annabeth

Our plan to get into the mansion only went well at the start. It started going wrong when we were in the dungeon in the lower levels. We didn’t pay any attention to the prisoners until I heard a woman say, “Annabeth, is that you?” I turned back, and I saw a familiar woman. One with long, brown curly hair and kind blue eyes. “Sally, what happened? How’d you get here?”

I ran to her cell and tried to see if I could open it. I couldn’t find keys and the bars were too thick to cut.

“Some man came to my house and said Percy needed me. He said that Percy was going to change and I needed to help him. So I went with him. Next thing that I knew, I woke up here in the cell.”

“Don’t worry, we will get you out of here,” I turned to the others to get Frank but all I saw was a giant fist coming for my face and I was out.

I woke up to a sharp slap to the face. I had my hands in shackles above my head. I pulled on my restraints, but they were chained to the wall. I looked to my right and saw Frank and the others in the same situations. I looked in front of me and saw the man with the eye-patch from before, Ethan.

“Nice of you to join us, Blondie,” he said. He paced in front of us. “Your boyfriend is outside, causing problems.” He went to Nico and punched his stomach once and then gave him a right hook to the cheek.

“Kronos isn’t happy with you lot,” he said as he walked to Frank. He started punching Frank’s torso like a boxer uses a heavy bag. I could see the pain on Frank’s face, but he didn’t make a sound. “So I’m down here to make you pay,” Ethan said with an upper cut to Frank’s jaw.

As Ethan walked away, Frank spit a stream of blood out onto the floor, “Just wait,” he told Etan. “When I get out of these chains, you’ll be begging for mercy.”

Ethan let out a chuckle, “That’s cute, but who says you’re leaving?” He stood in front of Jason and put a hand on his shoulder. Then he brought his leg up and started kicking his legs. When Jason’s leg couldn’t last longer, he collapsed. Since his hands were chained, he only fell part of the way down. Ethan kept kicking him, only he was kicking his ribs.

“Stop it!” I yelled.

He stopped and looked at me, he had an evil look on his face. He walked slowly over to me. “Don’t worry Blondie, I didn’t forget about you. You made me look like an idiot last time you were here, that’s unacceptable.” He drew his fist way back and it came crashing into my face. I was seeing starts.

Ethan was drawing his fist back for another hit when all of a sudden a voice came from behind him. “Nakamura! What are you doing? I told you to watch the prisoners only, not hurt them.”

Ethan turned around and I saw Luke. No, Kronos. He was walking up to us with his hands behind his back. 

“Welcome back to my home Annabeth. I’m glad you could come.”

“What are you wanting with us Kronos? Why not just kill us?” Frank asked.

“Oh!” Kronos looked to Frank, “You all are my most important guests. You are going to play the most important role today.”

“What do you mean?” I asked him.

The smile he gave me sent chills down my spine.

“Don’t worry, you will see.”

≈

I watched in horror as Kronos plunged the blade into Sally’s chest. I couldn’t believe what I was saying.

I looked at Percy, and his face was devoid of any emotion, but I could feel his anger rising. He closed his eyes and lowered his head. His firsts were clenched tightly. I could see him trembling from the anger.

Kronos started laughing. “I can feel the darkness taking over your heart. Soon, you will be under my control.” His laughing started up again.

That’s when I felt Percy’s energy increase immensely. It made the episode with Gabe look like child’s play.

When Percy looked up, his eyes were pitch black. They were so dark that they seemed to suck in any light around them. I looked at Kronos and his, once confident cocky smile, falter.

“You’ve made a grave mistake Kronos,” Percy said. “One that you will pay for dearly,” his voice was deep and was terrifying. Every person in the room was silent in fear. I saw a few devils in the back run out of a door.

The air around Percy started to change, getting darker. It was like his aura was becoming visible. It slowly got darker as his rage grew.

“No…” I heard Jason whisper. “Not that.”

“What? What is it?” I asked.

He turned to me, “It’s hellfire; most devils can’t or won’t ever use it.”

“Why not?” Frank asked.

“Because, in order to wield it, the user must give their heart completely over to the darkness. Its danger comes from its power. If the user isn’t careful, the hellfire will consume them. Even Lucifer doesn’t use it.”

My heart fell, I didn’t want Percy using this magic if it was so dangerous. The hellfire grew darker by the second and it started looking like actual fire.

That’s when Percy struck. He brought his hand back, like he was about to throw a baseball, and launched a large, black fireball straight towards the head of Kronos.

Kronos dodged it at the last second and the fireball hit a devil who was standing right behind. He ran around screaming, begging for help, but no one touched him. As the devil fell to the floor, he fell silent. As the flames died out, all that was left of him was a charred husk.

That’s when chaos broke out. Frank, Nico and Jason attacked their captors and grabbed weapons. They broke their bonds and started to attack devils around them. Some of the devils jumped down to fight Percy and the others. Percy barely had to move to beat them. He punched one in the face with a flaming fist, setting the devil on fire. Then when another two ganged up on him, he sliced a wide arch slashing both of their throats. 

The rest of the team on the ground started attacking other devils who jumped down from the balcony. I stood there frozen just looking at Percy. I couldn’t believe what was happening. He just killed two people without even blinking an eye. He didn’t seem bothered at all by what he had just done.

He started running towards the wall, then started climbing, grabbing onto the railing to the balcony. Kronos backed away into a doorway into a hall and ran off. Percy hopped over the railing and looked at me with those eyes, black and hard as obsidian. He walked up to me and snapped the ropes binding me with his hands like they were dried twigs. “You coming to help or not?” His voice was hard and cruel.

I turned to see how the others were handling the other devils. Piper and Reyna were fighting back to back and easily cutting down enemies. Frank and Nico were fighting next to each other, working their way away from the stairs. Jason had jumped down to join Hazel as she protected Will who was dressing a small wound Leo had received on his leg.

“Hey! Annabeth!” I turned back to Percy. His expression was harsh and made me feel tiny. “Are you coming or not?”

As much as I wanted to stay, I couldn’t leave Percy, not like this. So I nodded, reaching down to grab a knife I say a quick prayer, hoping to help us. We took off after Kronos down the hall.

It wasn’t long before we made it down the hallway to the throne room. Kronos stood at the end, scythe in hand and an evil smile on his face. “You should have agreed sooner Percy. Then perhaps your loved ones could have survived. But no matter, the darker your heart becomes, the easier it is to possess.”

I looked over to Percy, the hellfire was coming back. His eyes were still the dark void that they were before. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder, comfort him, but I didn’t want to touch the hellfire. Everything about it made my insides yell “Run!”

“If you think I will ever give into you, you’ve got another thing coming.” Percy said coldly. “You’ve been messing with my life for too long, now it’s time you leave it. Permanently.” He raised his sword and pointed it at Kronos; the blade was shaking slightly from his anger. I adjusted the grip on my knife, ready to jump in when I was needed. Then the fighting began.

Percy charged forward, sword pointed at the middle of Kronos. I ran after him and got ready to attack Kronos from the side while Percy kept him busy.

Right when I got into position, Ethan came from a doorway directly to my right he attacked me with his sword. I barely dodged it. He slashed and stabbed so fast that I had trouble keeping up with him. 

I was slightly aware of Percy’s fight with Kronos. I could feel the heat from the hellfire Percy was throwing everywhere. At one point it looked like Percy’s sword was on fire. I couldn’t pay too much attention to them with Ethan swinging away at me.

Ethan was backing me up slowly toward the wall. When my back hit the wall, I dove between his legs and kicked the back of his knees. As Ethan collapsed, I ran toward Percy to help him. He looked like he had the whole situation under control, with hardly a sweat on his brow.

Ethan suddenly tackled me from behind. He held me and pointed his blade at my chest, squeezing with all his strength. It was all I had to hold his arms away. I heard a body fly against a wall then I heard Percy yell, “Hey Ethan!”

I looked up and I see a fiery fist coming towards my head. I heard it connect to Ethan’s face behind me.

As soon as Ethan’s grip on me was released I ran away to stand next to him. “Thanks for that,” I said. Then I turned to look at Percy. I saw his smile, a glimpse of his true self, but then I saw his black eyes. It felt so wrong, this wasn’t my Percy. I had to snap him out of this.

Right as I was about to try and calm him down, Ethan started getting up. I heard someone walking behind us as well. I turned around to see Kronos walking toward us.

“Nakamura,” Kronos bellowed, “finish this. This is your test. Beat Jackson and you will be my top general.”

Ethan looked a little scared, but he nodded, “Yes my lord!” He swung his sword, getting his nerve. Then he charged. His skill was impressive, each attack was well timed, well placed and very quick. The only problem was that Percy was better.

He would move so the blade only met air each time. He moved with such ease that Ethan began to become frustrated. Finally, his anger got the better of him and he made a sloppy lunge toward Percy’s center, which he dodged easily.

Percy hit Ethan’s sword with his own. He hit the sword so hard that the force caused Ethan’s blade to run into the ground and get stuck. Then Percy slashed down, causing Ethan’s to shatter.

Ethan stumbled backward, holding his stomach as blood was streaming from the wound. 

Percy then gathered a black fireball in his hand. His face grew serious. “You didn’t have to suffer Ethan. You could’ve let my mother go, you could’ve saved her. You chose this,” the fireball grew as large as my head. “Now you must pay.”

He pulled his arm back and threw the hellfire directly at Ethan’s chest. The flames engulfed him and he started screaming in pain. It was one of the worst sounds I’d ever heard. I cringed, but Percy’s face was void of any emotion.

“Give up Kronos, you won’t win,” Percy said. When we turned around, we saw Kronos with an infuriated look on his face.

“You are over confident, Percy, that will be your down fall.”

Suddenly, Percy grabbed his head and fell to his knees, screaming in agony. “Get out of my head!” he yelled. He flopped backwards and fell to the floor, writhing in agony. I ran to his side and dropped to my knees next to him. “Percy! Percy open your eyes! Come on, look at me!”

“It’s no use, I have invaded his mind,” Kronos said. “As soon as I take over his mind, I will move onto his heart.” 

I kept holding Percy’s face, looking into his black eyes. Hoping to find some sliver of his old self in there. I started praying to God, begging him to help me, to help Percy. The screaming from Percy was killing me, but finally, it stopped.

I held my breath, not knowing what was going on. It confused me when I saw his face become relaxed and calm. My heart started to flutter a little bit, thinking maybe he was getting a little control of himself. But he did not look like himself.

He started to stand up, slowly. When he looked at me, I was more afraid than before. It wasn’t Percy’s face. I heard Kronos chuckle, “Yes, I have his mind now. My first order for him, is to kill you. His heart will be irreparable, and it will be mine.”

Percy started to swing at me. Left, then right, followed by another right. He finally caught me with an uppercut to the jaw. It sent me tumbling backwards, but I stopped falling after a couple steps. “Percy, stop please, it’s me, Annabeth,” I begged him. He didn’t stop, or even slow down. He sent a kick to my stomach and it struck home. I keeled over, trying to catch my breath. “Percy, please.”

This time he stopped for a brief second, but then he punched down on me. He picked me up, but he looked confused. I touched his face, “Percy, please, come back to me.” He stopped, and looked to me, “Annabeth? What, what is wrong with me?”

He stepped backwards. He grabbed his head, “Annabeth, what’s going on?”

“Percy, you have to fight Kronos. He is trying to control you, he is in your head right now. Please, try to fight him.” I walked up to Percy, and I held his face. “Percy, please. I need you in my life. I… I love you.”

≈≈≈≈≈

Percy

All that I knew when Kronos got into my mind, was darkness. I couldn’t tell what I was doing, or saying or even where I was. Then I heard his voice in my head, he told me that I was his puppet now. The next thing I knew, I could feel my limbs moving; only I wasn’t the one moving them. I felt like there were strings attached to me that controlled me. 

I could hear Annabeth’s voice, but it was far away. She seemed miles away from where I was. I wanted to go to her. She sounded like she was in trouble, but I couldn’t find where she was. All I knew was that I was throwing punches, but I didn’t want to be doing it. I tried stopping, and once, it even felt like it was going to work, but I kept going.

Suddenly, a little bit of light came through, and I saw Annabeth. My vision was foggy, but, I could still see her. She was hurt, someone had hit her, and when I looked at my fists, they were bloody and bruised. I had hurt Annabeth. “Annabeth? What, what is wrong with me?”

I stumbled backwards, I had to get away from her before I hurt her more. I could feel a war going on in my hand, telling me to do something I didn’t want to do. “Annabeth, what’s going on?”

She got up and walked toward me. “Percy you have to fight Kronos. He is trying to control you, he is in your head right now. Please, try to fight him.” She came even closer to me and held my face in her hands. “Percy, please. I need you in my life. I… I love you”

I couldn’t believe my ears. She loved me? But how could that be? 

I felt the strong presence again in my head, screaming at me to kill her. The voice was telling every fiber of my being to kill Annabeth right now. But a light inside of me was fighting it. The more I looked at Annabeth and the longer I looked into her eyes, the clearer my vision became. 

“Percy, this isn’t you. I know you can fight him, please, come back to me,” then she did something that I never would have expected. She pulled my face to hers and kissed me. I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t even process what was going on. My vision cleared even more. “Percy, please come back to me,” she said. She had tears in her eyes, I would do anything to keep her from crying. 

I turned to look at Kronos, and his grin had transformed into a look of concern. My anger raged again. But I felt Annabeth turn my head back towards her. “Percy, please, you need to control your anger. That is how he is controlling you, I know you fight best with your emotions, but you can’t use your anger.” 

I nodded, and turned back towards Kronos. I took a deep breath to calm myself. I felt emotion stir within me when I looked at Annabeth, but this time, it was not anger. But I felt love toward her. Yes, I was angry that Kronos had me hurt her, but she was still standing with me. She still loved me, and I realized that I loved her as well. 

“Kronos, this is the end. We are going to finish this, no more mind games, no more tricks. Just you, me and our blades.”

Kronos looked uneasy, but he swung his scythe. “It is your death wish,” and he charged toward us.

I ran at him and held my blade ready to strike. As soon as I got close to him I swung my sword at his center. He blocked it with the handle of his scythe, and took a swing at my face. I ducked away and swung a kick at his feet. They caught and he fell backwards onto the ground. I brought my blade down toward his neck, but he rolled away. He swung his blade up at me and I backed away, only not quickly enough. The sharp edge sliced the front of my shirt and I could feel blood running down my stomach. 

The wound stung, but I’d deal with it later. I charged again toward him and started swinging my blade. It was hard to keep up this fight with my wound. Sweat kept stinging it, and I could almost feel the wound getting wider. I had to wrap this fight up before I ran out of strength. 

I sent a kick towards Kronos’ stomach and it connected. He went rambling backwards, and I seized the moment. I charged forward with my sword in front of me. Right as he regained his balance, he stood up and turned to face me. As soon as he faced me, my sword sunk deep into his chest. It sunk into the exact same position that he stabbed my mother. 

I looked at his face, and he looked shocked. “W-what have you done?”

I got an inch from his face, and I said in a low growl, “That’s for my mother you bastard.”

He fell to the ground, with my sword stuck in his chest. I stumbled backwards and just as I was about to fall, someone caught me from behind. I looked up to see who it was, and I saw the most beautiful gray eyes. “Annabeth…”

We slowly went to the floor. Annabeth held me in her arms. Slowly my vision cleared to normal. I saw her smile, the smile that I loved so much. “Thank you, Annabeth. You saved me, again.”

She shook her head, “Percy, you don’t have to thank me for anything. I would save you time and time again. I know you would do the same for me. Thank you for coming back to me.”

I finally could relax. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath, getting even more comfortable in her arms. 

“Hey,” she said. I opened my eyes and looked up at her. I made a grunting sound, asking what she wanted. She had a serene look on her face as she said, “Your eyes are back to normal.” 

I let out a small laugh, and then she brought her face toward mine and she kissed me again. We held the kiss for a while, I couldn’t tell if it was a minute or an hour. But we had to break it when we heard doors opening and we heard Leo loudly say. “Geez you two, get a room why don’t ya?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I re-uploaded with some grammar changes and wording changes


	13. Chapter 12: Moment of Peace

We went back to the entrance where most of the fighting took place. I saw Will bent over working on someone familiar. I rushed to them to see my mother, bloodied and broken. A large lump formed in my throat.

“Mom,” my voice cracked. “Mom, I’m so sorry. I never meant for you to get hurt.” I put my hand over the blood soaked bandage on her chest. I lowered my head and started to cry.

She put a hand on my cheek, then she said quietly, “Percy, don’t cry. I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this.”

“But it’s my fault, if it wasn’t for me-” 

She stopped my talking by placing a finger over my lips. “Percy, I will never regret anything involving you. You are the greatest gift that I could have ever received.” Her eyes were filling up with tears and her lips were trembling. “Don’t you dare beat yourself up over me Percy, otherwise I will find you in my next life and I will ground you.” She had a smile now.

I smiled too, but the smile only made the tears come harder. I tried to wipe the tears away, but it was like using paper towels to clean up a flood.

My mom turned to face Annabeth, “Come here dear.” Annabeth kneeled down on the other side of her. My mom held her hand, then she put Annabeth’s hand in mine. Without breaking eye contact with Annabeth, “Look out for my boy, I will rest easy knowing you will be here with him.”

Annabeth looked up at me and we locked eyes. We looked at each other for at least a minute, then she nodded. Looking down to my mother with tears in her eyes, “I swear, on my soul, Sally that I will look after Percy.”

My mom nodded, “Thank you,” then she turned to me. “Percy, it’s about my time. Maybe I’ll see your father soon. But before I go, I want to tell you one last time. I love you, and you were the greatest thing to ever happen to me.”

And with that, my mother closed her eyes for the last time. She exhaled for the last time, and I kissed her head, for the last time.

≈

Our group gathered up a bunch of wood from around the mansion and the grounds nearby. While they did that, Annabeth and I wrapped my mother in a white blanket. I cried a little bit, but I had to stay strong for a little longer. 

Once all of the wood had been gathered, we went out into the court yard to build her funeral pyre. We arranged a tall tower for her. Once it was constructed, we all gathered around the pyre to show our final respects.

The fire was big and bright. As I looked at my friends, they all had tears in their eyes. I felt someone grab my hand. I looked to my left and I saw Annabeth. She was trying to hold her tears back, but failing.

Suddenly, the light around the fire got a lot brighter. Only, this was a white, pure light coming from the sky. When we looked up, we saw a group of people floating down.  
“An honor guard,” I heard Annabeth whisper. The group got closer to the ground surrounding the pyre, and Annabeth lead me towards them. The lead angel was a tall blonde woman with sharp gray eyes, similar to Annabeth’s. She had an aura that commanded such authority that I felt myself cower away from her a little bit.

Annabeth bowed, “My Lady Athena, it’s an honor to receive you.”

The angel, Athena, dipped her head in acknowledgment. “We have a few reasons to come here.” She went closer to the pyre, “The passing of Sally Jackson is a sad event. Her soul was so pure and good that we saw fit to bring an honor guard to escort her soul to Heaven.”

Hearing that brought a few tears to my eyes. My mother was going to Heaven, even with all the trouble I brought into her life, she finally gets to live in peace.

“I don’t mean to rude, but what is the other reason my lady?” I heard Annabeth ask.

Athena looked at us, “I also came here to congratulate you all for succeeding in your mission.” The tone of her voice sounded like that was only half of the truth. She looked down, towards our intertwined hands, with the same look one would have toward garbage. “I want all you angels to report to Heaven first thing tomorrow. Rest tonight, you’ve earned a break.”

She turned back to the pyre and reached into the flames. She pulled out a shining orb. It seemed like she was holding pure light.

“Is that…?” I asked, whispering to Annabeth.

“That’s your mother’s soul,” she said. “I’ve never seen on so pure,” she said with awe.

The honor guard of angels gathered in a circle, my mom’s soul in the center. Then they started to ascend toward the sky. Taking my mother’s beautiful soul to Heaven.

≈

When we got back to Hazel’s home, we told Rachel the story of the fight. It was hard hearing Annabeth describe how dark I went. I had never wanted that to happen. But what really scared me was knowing that the darkness was still in my heart. 

I could feel it, churning around inside of me. I kept feeling it grow stronger, willing me to destroy everything around me. But then, it would shrink away. I never let go of Annabeth’s hand. She was the only thing keeping me grounded.

Once we had finished the story, Rachel looked at us in awe. “You guys had quite a day,” she said with a slight laugh. “You guys go get cleaned up and I’ll make some dinner. You need a night off.”

We all split up to go shower and change. When we got near my room, I held onto Annabeth’s hand, “Hold up a minute.”

The rest of the group went on into the rooms. I pulled Annabeth into my room and as soon as I shut the door I pulled her into a hug. That was when all of the tears that I had been holding back came forth. They flowed like a river, I couldn’t stop them. We stayed like that for a while not saying anything, just holding each other. The only sound in the room was my crying, and shortly, Annabeth joined me.

After we cried all that we could, we pulled away from each other a bit, “Percy, I’m not sure-” but I had to talk to her first. I had to tell her what was on my mind before I lost my nerve.

“Hold on Annabeth, I need to say something first.” She looked confused but she nodded for me to continue. “I need to say all of this, so let me get it out, then you can talk, kay?”

She smiled and made a motion of locking her mouth and handing me the key.

After a small laugh, I took the key and put it in my pocket. I took a deep breath to gather my thoughts, “Annabeth, first, I want to apologize for turning into that monster.”

She started to say something but I stopped her, “Ah! I have the key remember?”

She crossed her arms and gave me a dirty look, but she motioned for me to continue.

“I know you are going to tell me that it wasn’t my fault, but that isn’t the total truth. I could have fought harder against the darkness. I could have fought harder against the darkness. But that isn’t where I’m going with this. What I’m really trying to say is, thank you.”

Annabeth’s face turned to a mixture of shock and confusion. “Thank me? For what?”

I smiled and lowered my head. “For being the only light in my darkness. You are what brought me back from Hell. I don’t think anyone else could have saved me.” I put my arms around her and brought her into another hug. “I heard everything you said to bring me back.”

I pulled back and saw her face flush. “Everything?” she asked shyly.

I grinned, “Yes Annabeth, everything.

She pulled away, and looked away embarrassed. “I get it if you don’t feel the same way about me. I just, I don’t want you to feel awkward or-”

I stopped her mid-sentence by pressing a kiss to her lips. It felt so right, almost like her lips were made to fit mine. When I pulled away, she looked like her brain had short circuited. “I love you too Annabeth.”

Slowly, she came back to her senses. A smile grew and she pulled my face back to hers. I’m not sure how long we kissed but I could have stayed like that forever.

Finally, we pulled away and Annabeth let out a sigh, “I should go get cleaned up.”

I nodded with a smile, “Yeah, same here.”

She walked to the door, and before she left, she came back and gave me another smaller kiss. She quickly left my room with a big smile.”

I flopped down on my bed and relaxed, grinning from ear to ear. I finally felt happy.

However, I never could have guessed how short lived that happiness would be.


	14. Chapter 13: Awaken

It had been a week since the angels had reported to heaven to debrief Athena about the events of the past three months. They were only supposed to be gone a day at most. Needless to say, all of us were worried.

Since Kronos had been destroyed, the whole area had been oddly peaceful. The only thing we could do was sit around waiting on our friends.

On the morning of the tenth day, Piper came running into the mess hall. “Guys! I know where they are!” The whole room was silent, waiting for her to tell us. Finally, Leo broke the silence, “Well? Spit it out beauty queen!”

She sat down at the table, “Athena has forced them to remain in Heaven, with no contact with devils. She is planning to destroy all of the devils in one giant battle.”

I was dumbfounded, “How do you know all of this Piper?” I asked her.

“Annabeth told me,” she said. “In a dream last night. She couldn’t contact any of the rest of you, so she told me. She wanted me to relay all of this information to you all.”

I sat there, trying to process all of the information. Piper just told us. Annabeth was forbidden to talk to me. Athena was planning on killing us, and I didn’t know what to do.

Jason went to her side, “Do you know when Pipes?”

She shook her head, “Not really. Annabeth didn’t know, but she said it would be soon. No more than a week. What are we going to do?”

We all looked around at each other, hoping someone would come up with an answer. Finally, Rachel spoke up. “We only have three days. That is when Athena plans to attack. I’m not sure what they plan on doing, but in order to win, Percy, you need to go on a journey.”

“Um… come again?” I said. “I must have something in my ear, because it sounded like you said I need to take a journey, when we only have a few days before angels are going to attack and destroy all of us.”

She closed her eyes and lowered her head, “I can’t explain how I know this, but I just know that you need to take a quest, to Hell. You need to meet with Lucifer. He has a message and a gift for you.”

Everyone was silent with surprise. I could barely get the idea through my head, Lucifer wanted to speak… to me. What did the lord of Hell, want with me? 

Finally, I found my voice, “But, how do I even get to Hell? It’s not like there is a special door in the basement of some department store.”

Jason chuckled and shook his head, “Magic teleportation, duh.”

I looked at him with annoyance, “I’m lousy with teleportation magic, and you know that.”

He shook his head, “Nah, this isn’t like normal teleportation, it doesn’t take skill. It’s sort of a… calling for all of us devils. All you have to do is summon a teleportation magic circle and search within yourself. You have to think about Hell and you will start to feel a pull deep in your gut. Then when you make the jump, you will be in Hell.”

I nodded, “Doesn’t sound too tough. But how do you know that? Do you frequently visit Hell?”

He shrugged, “A time or two, a lot of times, it’s been for ingredients for Hazel’s spells, but it shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Alright then,” I said with a sigh. “Then it sounds like I will be heading to Hell first thing tomorrow morning. I’m going to head to my room for now. I need to prepare and mentally comprehend all of this.” I actually needed to calm down my anger. All of this was so unfair that I could feel the darkness starting to build inside of me.

Everyone nodded, and with that I turned around and started to walk toward my room. Before I got there, Piper ran up to me and grabbed my shoulder, “Percy, hang on. I got one more thing for you.”

I turned around to face her, trying to make sure that the darkness didn’t get too powerful. It wasn’t easy, but I made sure that I didn’t let my inner struggle show, “Yeah, what’s up Piper?”

“Annabeth wanted me to give you a personal message.” Her face tinged with red.

“A message, just for me?”

She nodded, “Annabeth told me to tell you that, no matter the situation, she loves you. Athena has said that her loving you is a sin. An angel cannot love, they especially can’t love a devil. But Annabeth doesn’t care about that. She would be here with us today, but Athena cast an order that makes it physically impossible for her to disobey. Finally, she wanted me to tell you not to do anything stupid, she will find a way to get back to us.”

I didn’t know what to say. My head was spinning, it was still hard to believe that Annabeth loved me. Even though it was a sin, she chose me. I wiped my eye, trying to hide the single tear that came to my eye. “Thanks for that Piper, I’m going to my room now.”

Before she responded I turned around and started walking back to my room. I didn’t want to be rude, but my mind was bursting at the seams and the darkness seemed close to coming out. When I got my room, I flopped face first onto my bed. A million questions running through my mind. Why did Lucifer want to see me? What did he want to give me? How could Athena keep Annabeth and the other angels from us? How could love be a sin?

After a while, the questions made me so mad at how unfair the situation was. I got back up and started punching the seat of the chair in my room. I hit it so hard that after two hits, I broke the chair, then moved on to hitting the wall, making a huge hole in the wall. I couldn’t remember what happened after that.

When I came to, my room was destroyed and my knuckles were bloodied. I had broken my headboard, I had put holes in all my walls, and my bed was leaning against the wall opposite where it was before. I looked at the clock, it was 7:00 in the morning, time to head to Hell. I wasn’t sure how much sleep I had actually gotten, but now wasn’t the time to worry about that. 

I went to the kitchen to get some food before I left, and the only one in there was Hazel. She looked a little depressed, but when she saw me come in, she put on her normal controlled face. “I take it you didn’t sleep well last night?” she asked me. 

“How could you tell?” I asked, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

She shrugged her shoulders, “Just a hunch.” She sat down next to me as I made some toast. “I know what’s bothering you Percy,” she said. When I didn’t make any effort to engage her with conversation, she continued. “I know how you feel about Annabeth, a lot of us have feelings for the angels that are missing. But you have to control the darkness that is inside of you. I can feel the conflict inside you, so I have an idea what you are going through but-”

“Stop it Hazel, you have no idea what I am going through. Everything about this darkness is telling me to kill everyone I see, destroy every item that I come into contact with. This is something so powerful inside of me that I’m about to explode just trying to keep it in.” I was squeezing my fists so hard that I could feel my finger nails digging into the skin. 

She put a hand on my shoulder, “Percy, I know that I cannot understand what you are going through, but I can understand your internal struggle. I can sympathize, so don’t push your friends away. I spoke with Rachel last night, she is certain that Lucifer is going to give you something to help you with your struggle with your darkness.”

I nodded, “Thanks Hazel, but I better get going. Time is of the essence right now.”

“I’ll go with you to the teleportation room”

≈

When I got to Hell, I was surprised by my surroundings. It wasn’t all fire and brimstone like I thought. Sure there was fire, but not anywhere near what I had imagined. What I did see, was a giant castle in the middle of a lake of lava. From inside I could hear multiple screams, moans and cries for mercy. 

I walked to the entrance and got ready to knock but before I did, the door opened on its own. Cautiously, I walked inside, but no one was there behind the door. “Must be magic,” I whispered. I made my way down the hall, jumping occasionally when I heard another scream from behind a door. I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be going, but I figured I would eventually find my destination. 

Sure enough, at the end of the hall, when I was trying to decide whether to turn left or right, a strange man came up to me. He was wearing some strange robes, and he was wearing a pentagram necklace around his neck. “Lord Lucifer was expecting you, please follow me,” he turned around and started walking down the hall to the left. 

When we got to the end of the Hall, the man opened the door and motioned for me to enter. “Lord Lucifer is waiting for you in here,” then he started walking back down the hallway. 

I looked into the room, but I couldn’t see much into the room. I was hesitant to go inside, but then I thought about Annabeth, and my nerves steadied. I walked straight into the room and looked around. In the middle of the room, sat a long dining table loaded with food and goblets. At one end, sat a man who was handsome, man with black hair, tan skin and a tailored suit. He finished sipping from his goblet and looked toward me. “Ah, Percy, so glad you could join me. Please take a seat,” he motioned for the seat at the opposite end of the table, about ten feet away from him.

I went to my seat and sat down. One of the goblets slid towards me and automatically filled up with a red liquid. I picked it up and sniffed it, wine. I took a small sip and it burned on the way down. Not liking the taste, I set it down. “So, why did you call me here?” then thinking about who I was talking to, I decided to show some respect, “My lord.”

He smiled a bit, “Straight to business, I like that,” he set his drink down. “I called you here to give you some information, and a gift.” 

“Information?” I asked puzzled.

“Yes,” he smiled. “I have been informed that you now wield the power of Hellfire, is that correct?”

“Yes sir, I have been for a little while now. It’s what I used to defeat Kronos.”

“It is impressive that the darkness has not consumed your heart yet. I don’t even dare use the power of the dark Hellfire.”

I shrugged, “Guess I am just lucky.”

Lucifer shook his head, “That is not it. You are able to hold out because of your father. He gave you a gift, without anyone really knowing the truth.”

“What do you mean my father gave me a gift?”

He took a sip from his wine, “Your father was not human. He was, in fact, an angel.”

The fork that I was fiddling with in my hand dropped to the floor. “An, angel? How is that possible? I thought angels couldn’t have relationships?”

Lucifer shrugged, “I’m not exactly sure how he got away with it, but not all angels are perfect. He watched your mother and found that she was a perfect human. I don’t think she knew what he was, but they were together for a short while and fell in love. They married and then shortly after, your mother was expecting you. That is when God came and took your father. I’m not sure if he was taking your father from your mother forever, but God had a mission for your father. He didn’t make it back from the mission.”

I didn’t know what to say, I was completely stunned. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I could feel, in my core that some of what he was saying was true. I had always felt that I wasn’t completely a devil, there was always something different about me. I could just never figure out what it was. It could have been, that the part of me that was an angel was keeping me from being like the other devils. 

“I’m sure there are a million questions going through your mind at the moment, but listen closely. I’m sure most of your questions will be answered. The reason your heart has not been consumed by the darkness, is mostly due to the angel that is inside of you. That is why you have a pure heart. Most angels won’t acknowledge that it is possible for someone to be part angel, simply because it is such a mortal sin for an angel to have any sort of relations with humans or anyone else. But do not think that you are weak, being part angel and part devil gives you a power on a completely different level than most.”

“Seriously? How is that possible? I have never felt special or extra powerful before.”

“That’s because in order for your power to be truly unleashed, it has to be awoken. The angel spirit is so powerful that unless it is inside of an angel, it will destroy the body it inhabits. So it lays dormant until the body it inhabits is strong enough to handle it. That is where the second part of your visit comes into play.”

“Oh yeah,” I said. “I’d almost forgotten about the gift.”

He smiled, “This is a lot of information it’s to be expected. But the gift that I am going to bestow upon you is one of power. I am here to awaken your angel spirit and bestow great power on you.”

“Wait, what?” I didn’t know what to think about that. Was this going to be the thing I needed to save Annabeth? “Great power? But why me?”

He took another sip from his wine, “Because I believe that you can bring balance between angels and devils. A devil that is part angel has a certain power, and can be an envoy to both groups. You would have a stake in whatever happens with either group. As much as I enjoy causing trouble, it would not do well to have the angels destroy all my devils. And if all the angels are gone, who would reign in the devils who get out of control?”

“I guess that makes sense. So how does this work? You snap your fingers and the power is unleashed?” I asked him.

He shook his head, “Not quite, the transformation is going to be painful, but the payoff will increase your strength ten-fold. Are you ready for the ritual?”

I nodded, “Yes sir, I am.”

He stood up, “Alright then, follow me to the other room.” He started walking to the room behind him and I followed. I expected the other room to have an altar, candles and other stuff. The reality, however, was the room was bare, with only a cot in the center and a chair next to it. “I want you to lay down on the cot, I am going to use magic to release the spell, unlocking the magic hidden within.”

I walked to the cot and laid down. When Lucifer sat down next to me, I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself down. It wasn’t going very well, but then I thought about Annabeth. I was doing this for her, which helped a little bit. I took a deep breath, and steeled my nerves.

I felt the magic that Lucifer was using going into my body. It was a warm feeling flooding my body, but suddenly I felt something click inside of my chest and the warm energy left my body. “There, the spell is unlocked, soon the angel soul will be unleashed.”

I could feel some energy expanding from my chest, it was uncomfortable, but not painful. I thought that it would be nothing, but before the thought even finished crossing my mind, an intense pain shot through my mind. It felt like someone was shoving an ice pick through my brain, but from the inside. My chest felt like it was expanding to fifteen times its normal size.

I wanted to scream out in pain, my mouth opened, but no sound escaped. My back arched to such an extreme, that I was sure that my spine would snap. I wanted to stop the ritual, I would find a way to stop the angels without this special ability, but it was too late now. I wanted to call out to Annabeth, tell her I was sorry for not being strong enough to save her, but I couldn’t do anything. I don’t remember much after that except pain.

≈  
When next I woke, I felt like a totally different person. I could feel the darkness still in my heart, but now it felt more like a mild annoyance, rather than a tidal wave looming over me. I stood up and stretched my arms, and it just felt different. I couldn’t place my finger on exactly what was different, but I definitely wasn’t the same. I looked around and looked for Lucifer, but no one was in the room.

I walked to the door and looked around the room, still no one was there. I started walking down the hall, trying to find someone to figure out how long I was out. Finally after looking through countless rooms, I found Lucifer, he was painting a canvas. He looked over to me and sat his paints and brush down. “Glad you could join us, how do you feel?”

“Um, I’m not sure how to describe it sir. The darkness from the Hellfire seems like it isn’t as overbearing as it was before. I feel lighter and a little more at peace.”

Lucifer nodded, “That is to be expected, but we can talk more about that later. You need to meet up with your friends to try and stop the attack from the angels.”

“Wait, there is still another day don’t we?”

He nodded, “No, you were in that trance for two days, the angels will be starting their attack in a couple of hours if you don’t stop them. Teleport back to your friends home and they will fill you in on all of the information they have learned since you’ve been gone.”

I nodded and bowed, “Thank you Lord Lucifer, you have given me a gift that I can never repay you for it. I will do all that I can to stop the fighting, you can count on me.”

He smiled and waved me off, “Think nothing of it Percy, I know that you will make me and your father proud. Now go, you have some friends to meet.”

I reached deep within myself and summoned the magic from within and started thinking about Hazel’s home. It was actually easy for me now to find the place I wanted to go. I released the magic, sending me through time and space. When I opened my eyes, I was standing in the dining room in Hazel’s home. Everyone was looking at me with shocked expressions. 

“You guys seem surprised to see me,” I said. 

They looked at each other, then Jason stepped forward, “Well, yeah. We didn’t think you would be able to get here in time. We found out where the angel stronghold was. We were about to leave when you just showed up. Also, we could feel your magic energy before you even got here. How did you increase your energy that much?”

“Long story short, Lucifer helped me out. You said you know where we need to go to stop the angels?”

Hazel nodded, “I’d love to know about your journey, but we don’t have the time. We need to leave quickly to stop the angels. Are you ready Percy?”

I nodded, “You bet, let’s go kick some angel ass!”


End file.
